Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (4 page)

Our truest and best American antiquity, as the
Dominion History of theUnion
 insisted, was the nineteenth century, whose house hold virtues and modest industries we had been forced by circumstance to imperfectly restore, whose skills were unfailingly practical, and whose literature was often useful and improving.

But I have to confess that some of Julian's apostasy had infected me. I was troubled by unhappy thoughts even as the hall torches were pinched out and Ben Kreel (our Dominion pastor, pacing in front of the movie screen) delivered a lecture on Nation, Piety, and Duty.
War,
 Julian had said, implying not just the everlasting War in Labrador but a new phase of it, one that might reach its skeletal hand right into Williams Ford—and then what of me, and what of my family?

"We're here to cast our ballots," Ben Kreel said in his eventual summation,

"a sacred duty at once to our faith and to our country, a country so successfully and benevolently stewarded by its leader, President Deklan Comstock, whose Campaigners, I see by the motions of their hands, are anxious to get on with the events of the night; and so, without further ado, etc., please direct your attention to the pre sen ta tion of their moving picture,
First Under Heaven,
which they have prepared for our enjoyment—"

The necessary gear had been hauled into Williams Ford under a canvas-top wagon: a projection apparatus and a portable Swiss dynamo (probably captured from the Dutch in Labrador), powered by distilled spirits. The dynamo had been installed in a trench freshly dug behind the church, in order to muffle its sound, which nevertheless came up through the plank floor like the aggravated growling of a huge, buried dog. That vibration only added to the sense of moment, as the last illuminating flame was extinguished and the electric bulb within the mechanical projector flared up.

The movie began. As it was the first I had ever seen, my astonishment was complete. I was so entranced by the illusion of photographs "come to life" that the substance of it almost escaped me ... but I remember an ornate title card, and scenes of the Second Battle of Quebec, re-created by actors but utterly real to me, accompanied by drum-banging and shrill pennywhistling to represent the reports of shot and shell. Those at the front of the auditorium flinched instinctively, while several of the village's prominent women came near to fainting, and grabbed up the hands or arms of their male companions, who might be as bruised, come morning, as if they had participated in the battle itself.

Soon enough, however, the Dutchmen under their cross-and-laurel flag began to retreat from the American forces, and an actor representing the young Deklan Comstock came to the fore, reciting his Vows of Inauguration (a bit prematurely, but history was here truncated for the purposes of art)—that's the one in which he mentions both the Continental Imperative and the Debt to the Past. He was voiced, of course, by one of the Players, a
bassoprofundo
 whose tones emerged from his speaking-bell with ponderous gravity.

(Which was also a slight revision of the truth, for the genuine Deklan Comstock possessed a high- pitched voice, and was prone to petulance.) The movie then proceeded to more decorous episodes and scenic views representing the glories of the reign of Deklan Conqueror, as he was known to the Army of the Laurentians, which had marched him to his ascendancy in New York City. Here was the reconstruction of Washington, DC (a project never completed, always in progress, hindered by a swampy climate and insect-borne diseases); here was the Illumination of Manhattan, whereby electric streetlights were powered by a hydroelectric dynamo, four hours every day between 6 and 10 p.m.; here was the military shipyard at Boston Harbor, the coal mines and re-rolling mills of Pennsylvania, the newest and shiniest steam engines to pull the newest and shiniest trains, etc., etc.

I had to wonder at Julian's reaction to all this. This entire show, after all, had been concocted to extoll the virtues of the man who had executed his father. I couldn't forget—and Julian must be constantly aware—that the in-cumbent President here praised was in fact a fratricidal tyrant. But Julian's eyes were riveted on the screen. This reflected (I later learned) not his opinion of current events but his fascination with what he preferred to call "cinema."

This making of illusions in two dimensions was never far from his mind—it was, perhaps, his "true calling," and would eventually culminate in the creation of Julian's suppressed cinematic masterwork,
The Life and Adventures ofthe Great Naturalist Charles Darwin
... but I anticipate myself.

The present movie went on to mention the successful forays against the Brazilians at Panama during Deklan Conqueror's reign, which may have struck closer to home, for I saw Julian flinch once or twice.

As exciting as the movie was, I found my attention wandering from the screen. Perhaps it was the strangeness of the event, coming so close to Christmas. Or perhaps it was the influence of the
History of Mankind in Space
, which I had been reading in bed, a page or two a night, ever since our journey to the Tip. What ever the cause, I was beset by a sudden sense of melancholy. Here I was in the midst of everything that was familiar and ought to be comforting—the crowd of the leasing class, the enclosing benevolence of the Dominion Hall, the banners and tokens of the Christmas season—and it all felt suddenly
thin,
 as if the world were a bucket from which the bottom had dropped out.

I supposed this was what Julian had called "the Phi los o pher's perspective."

If so, I wondered how the Philosophers endured it. I had learned a little from Sam Godwin—and more from Julian, who read books of which even Sam disapproved—about the discredited ideas of the Secular Era. I thought of Einstein, and his insistence that no particular point of view was more privileged than any other: in other words his "general relativity," and its claim that the answer to the question "What is real?" begins with the question "Where are you standing?" Was that all I was, I wondered, here in the cocoon of Williams Ford—a Point of View? Or was I an incarnation of a molecule of DNA, "imperfectly remembering," as Julian had said, an ape, a fish, and an amoeba?

Maybe even the Nation that Ben Kreel praised so extravagantly was only an example of the same trend in nature—an imperfect memory of another Nation, which had itself been an imperfect memory of all the Nations before it, all the way back to the dawn of Man (in Eden, or in Africa, as Julian believed).

The movie ended with a stirring view of an American flag, its thirteen stripes and sixty stars rippling in sunlight—betokening, the narrator insisted, another four years of the prosperity and benevolence engendered by the rule of Deklan Conqueror, for whom the audience's votes were solicited, not that there was any competing candidate known or rumored. The completed film flapped against its reel; the electric bulb was quickly extinguished; the Poll-Takers began to reignite the wall torches. Several of the lease-men in the audience had lit pipes during the display, and their smoke mingled with the smudge of the torches to make a blue-gray thundercloud that brooded under the high arches of the ceiling.

Julian seemed distracted, and slumped in his pew with his hat pulled low.

"Adam," he whispered, "we have to find a way out of here."

"I believe I see one," I said, "it's called the door—but what's the hurry?"

"Look at the door more closely. Two men of the Reserve have been posted there."

I looked again, and what he said was true. "But isn't that just to protect the balloting?" For Ben Kreel had retaken the stage, and was getting ready to ask for a formal show of hands.

"Tom Shearney, the barber with a bladder complaint, just tried to leave to use the jakes. He was turned back."

Tom Shearney was seated less than a yard away from us, squirming unhappily and casting resentful glances at the Reserve men.

"But after the balloting—"

"This isn't about balloting. This is about conscription."

"Conscription!"

"Quiet! You'll start a stampede. I didn't think it would begin so soon ... but we've had tele grams from New York about a defeat in Labrador and a call for new divisions. Once the balloting is finished the Campaigners will probably announce a recruitment drive, and take the names of everyone present, and survey them for the names and ages of their children."

"We're too young to be drafted," I said, for we were both just seventeen.

"Not according to what I've heard. The rules have been changed to draw in more men. Oh, you can probably find a way to hide out when the culling begins. But my presence here is well-known. I don't have a mob to melt away into. In fact it's probably not a coincidence that so many Reservists have been sent to such a little town as Williams Ford."

"What do you mean, not a coincidence?"

"My uncle has never been happy about my existence. He has no children of his own. No heirs, and he sees me as a possible competitor for the Executive."

"But that's absurd. You don't
want
 to be President—do you?"

"I would sooner shoot myself. But Uncle Deklan has a jealous bent, and he distrusts the motives of my mother in protecting me."

"How does a draft help him?"

"The entire draft isn't aimed at me, but I'm sure he finds it a useful tool.

If I'm drafted, no one can complain that he's exempting his own family from the conscription. And when he has me in the infantry he can make sure I find myself on the front lines in Labrador—performing some noble but suicidal trench attack."

"But—Julian! Can't Sam protect you?"

"Sam is a retired soldier and has no power except what arises from the pa-tronage of my mother. Which isn't worth much in the coin of the present realm. Adam, is there another way out of this building?"

"Only the door, unless you mean to break a pane of that colored glass that fills the windows."

"Somewhere to hide, then?"

I thought about it. "Maybe," I said. "There's a room behind the stage where the religious gear is stored. You can enter it from the wings. We could hide there, but it has no exit of its own."

"It'll do. As long as we can get there without attracting attention."

That wasn't too difficult, for the torches had not all been re-lit, much of the hall was still in shadow, and the audience was milling about and stretching while the Campaigners got ready to record the vote that was to follow—the Campaigners were meticulous accountants even though the final tally was a foregone conclusion and the ballrooms were already booked for Deklan Conqueror's latest inauguration. Julian and I shuffled from one shadow to another, giving no appearance of haste, until we were close to the foot of the stage. We loitered near the entrance to the storage room until a goonish Reserve man, who had been eyeing us, was called away to dismantle the projecting equipment—that was our chance. We ducked through the curtained door into near-absolute darkness.

Julian stumbled over some obstruction (a piece of the church's tack piano, which had been taken apart for cleaning by a traveling piano-mechanic who died of a seizure before finishing the job), the result being a woody "clang!" that seemed loud enough to alert the whole occupancy of the church—but didn't.

What little light there was came through a high glazed window that was hinged so that it could be opened in summer for ventilation. It gave a weak sort of illumination, for the night was cloudy, and only the torches along the main street were shining. But the window became a beacon as soon as our eyes adjusted to the dimness. "Perhaps we can get out that way," Julian said.

"Not without a ladder. Although—"

"What? Speak up, Adam, if you have an idea."

"This is where they store the risers—the long wooden blocks the choir stands on when they're racked up for a per for mance. Maybe those would do."

Julian understood the plan at once, and began to survey the shadowy contents of the storage room as intently as he had surveyed the Tip for books. We found the raw pine risers, and managed to stack them to a useful height without causing too much noise. (In the church hall the Campaigners registered a unanimous vote for Deklan Comstock, and then began to break the news about the conscription drive, just as Julian had surmised. Some few voices were raised in futile objection; Ben Kreel called loudly for calm—no one heard us rearranging the furniture.)

The window was at least ten feet high, and painfully narrow, and when we emerged on the other side we had to hang by our fingertips before dropping to the ground. I bent my right ankle as I landed, though no lasting harm was done.

The night, already cold, had turned colder. We had dropped just near the hitching posts, and the horses whinnied at our unexpected arrival and blew steam from their nostrils. A fine, gritty snow had begun to fall. There was not much wind, however, and Christmas banners hung limply in the brittle air.

Julian made straight for his horse and loosed its reins from the post.

"What do we do now?" I asked.

"You, Adam, will do nothing but protect your own existence, while I—"

But he balked at pronouncing his plans, and a shadow of anxiety passed over his face.

"We can wait this crisis out," I insisted, a little desperately. "The Reserves can't stay in Williams Ford forever."

"No. Unfortunately neither can I, for Deklan Conqueror knows where to find me."

"Where will you go, though?"

He put a finger to his mouth. There was a noise from the front of the Dominion Hall. The doors had been thrown open and the congregants were beginning to emerge. "Ride after me," Julian said. "Quick, now!"

I did as he asked. We didn't follow the main street, but caught a path that turned behind the blacksmith's barn and through the wooded border of the River Pine, north in the direction of the Estate. The night was dark, and the horses stepped slowly; but they knew the path almost by instinct, and some light from the town still filtered through the thinly falling snow that touched my face like a hundred small cold fingers.