This is the Way the World Ends (30 page)

Bonenfant’s upper teeth entered into violent contact with his lower ones. ‘Er – when did you first meet—’

‘When he came in to get his free scopas suit. Ask me how much the prosecution paid me to make it.’

‘How much did the prosecution pay you—’

‘Objection!’ The Hatter shot up as if attached to a delivery system. ‘Leading the witness! The prosecution did not pay me to make the suit. But they did bribe me with a wonderful flying shop.’ He flopped back into the stand. ‘Ask me what happened after I told George he had to sign a sales contract implicating himself in the arms race.’

‘The tribunal will please note that my client was entrapped by the prosecution. Now, Mr Carter, what happened after you told George he had to sign a sales—’

‘He signed it, took the suit, and left.’

‘What happened next?’

‘I became curious. Would
anyone
have behaved as George did – accepting a free suit even after being told that this technology undermined deterrence? So I filled my hat with unsigned contracts and flew off in my shop. I figured that if fifty people refused to sign, then George was an unusually negligent person, and I was obliged to surrender his confession to the prosecution.’

‘Did you find fifty such people?’

After removing the teacup from the brim, Theophilus flipped his hat over and reached inside. His hand emerged with a stack of scopas suit sales contracts. ‘These are the first two hundred I gave out. Every one is signed. All right, I said to myself. I’ll settle for forty-five refusals. No luck. Thirty? Impossible, Ten? Nope. Time was running out. The warheads had started landing. One! If
one
person is less negligent than George Paxton, I’ll hand over the evidence of his guilt.’

‘And did you find such a person?’

‘Ask me if I found such a person.’

‘I just did.’

‘You did? What a coincidence – I found one too! Ask me whether this person was a man or a woman.’

‘Was this person a man or—’

‘That’s irrelevant! What’s relevant is that only one person on earth was willing to worry about the impact of scopas suits on deterrence.’

‘Your Honor, I object,’ said Aquinas. ‘Dr Carter did not approach every person on earth.’

As Justice Jefferson instructed the stenographers to delete the witness’s last remark, Theophilus unhooked a pineapple-type fragmentation grenade from his belt and began biting the cast iron case.

‘Ask me why I’m insane,’ he said.

‘Why are you insane?’ the advocate responded.

Theophilus pulled the pin from the grenade – nothing happened – and used it to stir his tea. If admitted, he explained, he would have been part of the abolition regime. His job would have been to sit in a rubber room in the Pentagon all day, thinking about strategic doctrine. It was assumed that people who took this job would go crazy. They were the heroes of the twenty-first century. Their madness was their gift to the human species; because of the Hatter and his fellow martyrs, humanity would never forget how close it had come to suicide.

‘Ask me what job I have now,’ said Theophilus.

‘What job—’

‘History rehabilitation. Long hours, low pay, bad smells. ‘Again he reached into his hat, this time coming up with a stack of computer software disks. ‘Now this program here,’ he said, ‘this is Marcus Aurelius. And this one will go into Mahatma Gandhi’s brain. At one time, all of history heartily approved of what this tribunal is trying to do. But then, after George saved my life—’

‘Saved your life?’ said Bonenfant, pouncing on the testimonial. ‘How did he come to save your life?’

‘I’m asking the questions around here! Ask me how George came to save my life.’

‘How did George—’

‘Somebody was going to shoot me. Ask me who.’

‘Who?’

‘Don’t ask! It would not help Tarmac’s case one bit.’

‘I wasn’t really going to shoot him,’ Brat explained to his codefendants. ‘I just wanted to scare him into giving me his shop.’

‘It flies – is that what he said?’ asked Randstable.

‘Twenty-first century know-how,’ said Brat.

‘Love to see the schematics,’ said Randstable.

Theophilus took more software from his hat. ‘After George saved my life, I realized that the framers of the McMurdo Sound Agreement had been overstepping their authority. He’s a fine fellow, old George is. You should see the witnesses I’ve got lined up.’ The Hatter waved a disk around. ‘Look! Socrates will testify in his defense! And Saint Francis of Assisi! Joan of Arc!
Jesus Christ Himself
is prepared to take the stand on George’s behalf . . . Yes, the same Jesus Christ who said, “But whosoever shall nuke thy capital city, turn to him thy best seaport also.” ’

George noticed that Reverend Sparrow’s face was rapidly shifting toward the purple end of the spectrum.

Aquinas rose and said, ‘I move that all of this witness’s babblings be stricken.’

‘Mr Carter has stated that my client was entrapped,’ said Bonenfant. ‘That is vital testimony.’

While the president of the court deliberated, Theophilus refilled his hat with software and sales contracts.

‘The testimony will stand,’ said Justice Jefferson. ‘However, we do not wish to hear any more of it. The prosecution may cross-examine.’

‘We decline to cross-examine,’ said Aquinas.

‘Oh? Why?’

‘Because life is short, your Honor.’

As when a fever seizes the brain and makes things grotesquely smaller, larger, fatter, or thinner, so did the perspectives afforded by the stand disorient George. The audience, a tame and predictable creature when viewed from within the booth, now looked ferocious. The judges had acquired a terrifying hostility. The court usher was stark and unforgiving.

‘What did you do for a living?’ Bonenfant asked.

‘I inscribed tombstones,’ George answered. ‘And sold them.’

‘Did this work have anything to do with national defense?’

‘No.’ So far, so good, he thought.

Bonenfant retrieved Document 919 from a nearby evidence pile. ‘The prosecution’s entire case against you seems to rest on this sales contract. Is that your signature at the bottom?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Did Theophilus Carter insist that you read these statements carefully before signing?’

‘No.’

‘
Did
you read them carefully?’

‘Not really.’

‘According to the contract, you believed that scopas suits were encouraging America’s leaders to pursue a policy of nuclear brinksmanship.’

‘I didn’t even know what “nuclear brinksmanship” was. I’m still not sure.’

‘Did you believe, as the contract says, that scopas suits were distracting people from the real issues – STABLE talks, the MARCH Plan, no-first-use?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘This document was putting words in your mouth, wasn’t it?’

Commotion at the prosecution table. ‘And Mr Bonenfant is putting words in his client’s mouth,’ Aquinas asserted.

‘Ask another question,’ said Justice Jefferson.

‘To tell you the truth, your Honors’ – Bonenfant ambled back to the defense table – ‘my client is so palpably innocent that I cannot think of a single additional question to ask him. He’s yours, Mr Aquinas.’

As the chief prosecutor charged forward, the butterflies in George’s stomach began producing larvae.

‘You have told the court that you used to sell tombstones,’ Aquinas began.

God, has he nailed me already? No, I did sell tombstones. ‘That’s right.’

‘Was it your practice to have customers sign sales contracts without reading them?’

‘No.’

‘And yet you are asking the court to believe that you signed a scopas suit contract without reading it?’

‘I did read it, sort of. It confused me.’

‘ “I hearby confess to my complicity in the nuclear arms race.” That sounds like plain English to
my
ears.’

A vulture expert. Everything would be fine as long as a vulture expert showed up. ‘It was the other parts that confused me.’

‘Do you or do you not understand the words, “I hereby confess to my complicity in the nuclear arms race”?’

George knew that his voice was going to sound weak and defeated. ‘I understand them.’ Weak, defeated. ‘I wanted my little girl to have a scopas suit. Is that so terrible?’

The chief prosecutor placed the contract at arm’s length, as if it harbored an infectious disease. ‘Can you point to a single action on your part that would lead the tribunal to doubt your negligence?’

‘Well, not exactly. No. But if you heard Mr Carter’s testimony, then you know that just about everybody else—’

‘Just about everybody else is not on trial here.’

Aquinas took a long, deliberate stroll around the prosecution table. George twitched like a skewered moth.

‘I’m curious, Mr Paxton,’ the chief prosecutor said at last. ‘How do you feel about your co-defendants?’

‘How do I feel about them?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re my friends.’

‘Good friends?’

‘We play poker. Reverend Sparrow once saved me from some dangerous ensigns. Dr Randstable has been showing me the basic chess openings. General Tarmac helped me find a fertility clinic.’

‘So you like them?’

‘Sure I like them. They certainly aren’t war criminals.’

‘And how do you feel about their ideas?’

‘Their what?’ George asked politely.

‘Their ideas.’

‘If I’d been the one in Washington, I probably couldn’t have done any better.’

Aquinas scowled. ‘Again I put the question to you. How do you feel about your co-defendants’ ideas?’

The high-school students were back in George’s mind, merrily kicking off the abolition regime. Plop! went the Soviet SS-90 intermediate-range missile into the glowing magma of Mount Erebus. He thought: our case is going well, my friends did an excellent job of defending themselves, and now I’m about to blow it. Still, this is a court of law. I touched a Bible and swore to give the truth. ‘I guess I’d have to say . . .’

His intestines writhed around each other. Overwhite will never speak to me again. Randstable won’t teach me any more openings. Sparrow will stop praying for me. Brat will hate me forever . . .

‘I guess I’d have to say that my friends’ ideas were pretty bad.’

‘Pretty bad?’

‘Yes. Bad. Bad ideas. Terrible, in fact.’

Aquinas began warming up for a gigantic smile. ‘Why do you suppose your co-defendants spent so much time and energy on these bad ideas?’

‘That’s hard to say.’

The prosecutor’s smile grew. ‘Can you guess?’

‘Well, I suppose that thinking about bad ideas is more interesting and exciting than . . . you know.’

‘Than what?’

‘You know.’

‘Abolishing the weapons?’

‘Yes,’ sighed George.

Aquinas’s smile reached full potential. ‘No further questions,’ he said, slapping the sales contract on the bench.

A new and particularly bitter layer of frost had infested the glass booth during George’s absence. ‘I found you very sympathetic,’ said Overwhite tonelessly as the tomb inscriber settled back down in the dock.

‘Sincerity city,’ said Randstable without passion.

‘I don’t think it was necessary to mention bad ideas,’ said Brat.

‘Yes, I had trouble with that part too,’ said Overwhite.

‘Abolition regimes are inherently unworkable,’ said Wengernook. ‘Seabird admitted as much.’

‘You don’t need to keep saying that,’ George snapped.

Justice Jefferson put on her whalebone glasses, briefly studied the sales contract, and asked, ‘Might I assume that the case for the defense is concluded?’

‘Our final witness will take the stand tomorrow,’ said Bonenfant.

When his advocate glowered at him, George’s bullet wound felt as if it were reopening.

Thrust into a frigid hell with nothing to sustain him but a glass painting of his unborn child, infused with the feeling that his performance on the stand had been a disaster, sick with the thought that he had betrayed his friends, George was nevertheless as happy as any human has ever been. For walking boldly through the courtroom, eyes dead ahead, was the future mother of Holly’s stepsister. His spermatids thrashed with desire. Morning smiled at him quickly, subtly; perhaps she hadn’t smiled at all. She changed the world. The palace brightened. Everyone in the gallery, even the old ones with their bleak eyes and crushed postures, had a beauty George had not noticed before.

‘Hey, look,’ said Wengernook. ‘It’s the periscope lady.’

‘Somebody that frigid should feel right at home around here,’ said Brat.

‘Why don’t you be quiet?’ hissed George.

After Morning had been sworn in, Bonenfant asked, ‘Are you a war refugee?’

She closed her eyes and said, in a voice George and his spermatids found overwhelmingly sensual, ‘I practiced psychotherapy in Chicago when it existed.’

‘Did you treat the six defendants for survivor’s guilt aboard the
City of New York
?’ Bonenfant asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Why do you wish to testify?’

‘I know something that will help Paxton’s case.’

‘Something you learned while treating him?’

George grimaced internally. Nothing makes you as self-conscious, he realized – no magnitude of nakedness or public blunder – as the experience of observing others discuss you.

‘No, my testimony comes from before that time,’ said Morning. ‘Mr Bonenfant, members of the tribunal, let me take you back to the day of Paxton’s rescue. Our submarine lay in Boston Harbor, waiting for the abduction team to return. I trained one of the periscopes on the defendant’s hometown.’

‘Why?’

‘I was trying to spot my new patient.’

‘Did you?’

‘No. I became fascinated by the town itself. I realized that it was about to disappear, and I wanted to see how everyone was spending his time. The people’s faces were tight and grim. They went about their Saturday morning duties – getting their mail, buying their doughnuts – and I could find no joy. This was seven days before Christmas. But then a little girl and her mother came out of a store. The mother carried a bag of groceries. The child had a small plastic snowman in her hands. She was bubbling about it. Her lips said, “You’re going to live on our Christmas tree!” I began feeling much better . . . and much worse.