(cont. from part3)

The house had been cleaned. The carpets were replaced; they were a different colour, probably the GOvernment Stores (GSs) had run out of the more popular styles. All his wife's clothes and other belongings were neatly folded, packaged, and stored away in the cellar. Everything smelled of disinfectants, with the sterile atmosphere of absolute cleanliness.

J went to the kitchen to inspect the refrigerator. There wasn't much left in it; under normal circumstances, it would have been shopping day today, and with all this turmoil, he had even forgotten to pick up their order from the butcher.

He found a TV-dinner, heated it, then settled down with it. The meal consisted of various coloured substances of artificial origins, made to look like organic food. The taste was nondescript, but J wasn't too concerned about it at the moment.

He was in the living room, carefully avoiding the place where his wife had been sitting earlier today. He decided to have a quiet evening, to relax as much as possible.

But somehow, he couldn't settle down. Not even the Social Values course had managed to make him sufficiently accepting to feel at ease tonight. The silence around him, the absence of his wife's voice, reminded him more than ever of the happenings of the day. The sound of this silence threatened to drive him into disruptive thought - there were no distractions to occupy his mind.

Angrily, he threw his food into the garbage disposal and went to his library. The GOvernment Daily Reading List (GDRL) informed him that today's selection was to be found in the works of Goethe. He opened Faust and began to read.

A few minutes later he put the book away, realising that he hadn't taken in a single word of what he read. His eyes had been flying over the script, but his mind was elsewhere. The silence around him reminded him of the silence in the elevator, when he had been given the first indications that everything was wrong.

He picked up the evening newspapers. Until now he had carefully avoided opening them for fear of the obvious reminders of the shooting he was going to find there, the pictures and stories that were bound to be spread throughout all the media. But, so he thought, since he couldn't take his mind off his problems anyway, he might as well see what the news services said about the situation. He hoped to find a good article, one that would be educational to a large number of citizens, one that made all that dying worthwhile after all. It was in this value of education that he found comfort. His suffering was designed to help others avoid similar pains, his anguish was to help in a small way to solve the world's problems. Even if his wife had died by accident, the value of her death could not be denied.

But J was unpleasantly surprised - there was no mention of either elimination in any of the papers. Just as if the baby and his wife never had died, thought J. The potential impact of today's events had been overlooked.

There was no news of any importance in the papers - the lead story was about the development of a new GOvernment Delivery Van (GOD-Van), which would make food distribution even more efficient than it was already - so there was no logical explanation for such momentous events as today's accidental eliminations being kept out of the papers. J looked through every page, at first reading only the bold headlines and the captions below photographs, then looking through the minor news items down to three lines of a narrow column. Neither the deaths nor the fact that the GOvernment's main computers had failed, rated a mention anywhere.

J was perplexed; he tried to make sense of this, but it was difficult. It was obvious that the newspapers knew what had happened. Reporters had been at the baby's home before J had left. He had personally been interviewed for quite a long time about the death of his wife; the memory of the many lights flashing as the photographers took their pictures was still fresh in his memory, as were the bright lights while the TV cameras were rolling. When he had left the New Federal GOvernment Building (NFGB), the offices had been full of reporters trying to cover the story of the failing computers. So, obviously, they knew all about it. Why didn't they report it?

The answer came to J suddenly, but it was so enormous that it frightened him. Even though the GOvernment told its citizens that all the news was published all the time, and even though the population was informed over and over again that there was no censorship under the New Constitution (NC), there obviously was somebody who kept control over what was published and what was not. After all, if none of the papers printed anything about either event, somebody must have prevented them from reporting it. And who had the power to do such a thing? Only the GOvernment.

Strangely, J no longer felt guilty about thinking such anti-GOvernment and anti-Social-Values thoughts. The effects of his education seemed to be wearing off. He had heard that this happened sometimes, but he had never believed it. Now he knew; it was happening to him at this very moment.

He knew that he would be classified officially insane if he let anybody know about these thoughts. But strangely, he didn't feel insane; as a matter of fact he felt more sane than he had ever been. He could think now, he could think almost anything he wanted, he was losing his inhibitions about thinking freely. For the first time in his life he experienced free thought; a sense of lightness surrounded him. He was no longer bound, a slave to his education.

J could feel the change of attitude overcome him. He was excited, but, at the same time, he was powerless to control this new feeling.

He turned on the tele-screen. The evening news would soon be on, and he was looking forward to finding his suspicions confirmed by the absence of any news of the day's events.

A comedy was on at the moment. The GOvernment Entertainment Service (GES) was sponsoring a young comedienne who recited a monologue about her visit to an asylum.

"There were people", she said, "who thought they were not citizens." (Laughter). "There were people who talked about 'higher beings', beings higher than our GOvernment. Can you imagine?" (Laughter and applause).

J started to laugh. There was absolutely nothing funny about this woman's presentation. It was boring, predictable, worn out. But J had to laugh about the people who, because she was billed as a comedian, laughed about everything she said. However idiotic and un-funny her words might be, the masses laughed.

Suddenly, J didn't feel like a citizen any more. He felt himself to be an outcast from society, but he enjoyed the feeling of standing on the outside, looking in.

The news followed. The solemn face of the announcer went through its various stages of portrayal of agony, joy, or disinterested neutrality and impartiality to the particular item of news just being read. J, for the first time, recognised the built-in comedy of such newscasts. J anticipated correctly: there was no mention of his wife's death, nor of the baby's death for that matter, and more importantly, there was no mention of the fact that a vital GOvernment computer had erred.

The picture which formed in J's mind became clearer. The GOvernment was deceiving the people by concealing several items of important news for its own protection. The GOvernment was not part of the general population, it didn't exist only for the benefit of its citizens, but it was a separate entity, concerned with its own well-being rather than the people's interests. Why, otherwise, would these news-items be suppressed? Somebody was responsible for today's events, and somebody was responsible for censoring the news about them. Whoever it was should be brought before the people and made to provide justification, or should be accused and tried for negligence or some other crime, as the case might be. Only in this way could the GOvernment convince the people that it was acting on their behalf, in their interest. But no, the GOvernment had obviously chosen to protect the guilty rather than the people.

Something had to be done about this. Something had to be done before the situation got out of hand, before the GOvernment fell into a pattern of concealing more and more from the people. But what could he do? What could anybody do to influence the GOvernment? Who could do something?

The more he thought about it, the clearer it became to J that there was only one person who could solve this problem now, who was strong enough to save the dignity of the GOvernment, and who could suppress this corruption: the President had to be informed at once.

J reached for the telephone to dial the President's home number; but J's telephone was dead. Not a sound to be heard. J tried the emergency number to find out if there was damage to the line, or if the trouble lay in the exchange. Emergency answered, and informed him that his service had been terminated. The line had been permanently disconnected. The kind voice couldn't give him the reason for this and suggested that he call the Department in charge. A silly idea, thought J, since he had been cut off from any connection except emergency.

Another mistake, thought J. Yet another one the same day. Things were really getting bad. Well, maybe it was better this way. He would straighten out this telephone matter tomorrow when he could ring the President from his office. Just one more piece of evidence he was going to present in his case against bad and corrupt GOvernment services.

J was excited. Never before had he experienced so many official mistakes; probably this was a first in the history of the New Society (NS). Or, at least, he had never before known about so many mistakes.

The silence of the house, the absence of his wife's voice or the little noises from the things she was always busy doing, increased the feeling of resentment and his confusion about what needed to be done. He carefully avoided thoughts about his wife and how he had eliminated her today. He knew that his mind had taken more disturbances in one day than it could cope with. Any brooding over her death would have, so thought J, only the one effect of pushing him beyond the limits of tolerable social values.

Somehow, J had to escape this torment, this house and all it meant to him and reminded him of; somehow, he thought, there ought to be some way of escaping this whole situation.

J couldn't stand it any longer. He left the house and drove slowly towards the downtown area of the city, where there would be several bars open. The GOvernment had never outlawed intoxicating substances; it allowed them for the amusement of the lower classes, but strongly discouraged alcohol amongst those from the higher socioeconomic groupings. It was solely a concession to the unintelligent, the ones who, in the view of the GOvernment planners, needed to stupefy themselves to overcome their feelings of inferiority. J had tried alcohol during his indoctrination period: that had been a must amongst the students; a little play with fire as initiation to responsible life. Everybody discontinued this practice after the course. But now, remembering his experiments with the stuff, and on this first day of his newly found intellectual freedom, he remembered the refreshing taste of the forbidden beverages, and their pleasant influence on his way of thinking. He felt like a drink now, and he was going to get one, no matter what the GOvernment or anybody else thought of it.

Probably this whole business about intoxication was just another GOvernment lie, probably the President himself indulged in spirits; only suckers like J himself obeyed the Law of Ethics (LE). But he was free now, no longer holding back for obscure and unintelligible reasons; he felt like doing it, and he was going to do it!

The empty streets symbolised the GOvernment's involvement with the everyday lives of the people. Most citizens were now sitting in front of their tele-screens, carefully watching the programs recommended by the official GOvernment Bulletin On Tele-Screening (GOBoTS), distributed free of charge once every five weeks to each person with access to a tele-screen. They all sat there, their eyes and minds glued to the recommended programs; not that there was any choice of programs anyway.

J enjoyed the drive through the dark, cool, night air. The deserted streets gave the city an atmosphere of peacefulness... one could drive without having one's thoughts interrupted by people walking across the streets instead of using the overhead bridges or underground tunnels, a clear breach of the Pedestrian Road Code (PRC), or interruptions to one's concentration through other drivers who were not capable of making up their minds as to where they wanted to go, an increasing problem in modern society. Invariably, such individuals would decide too late and enter one of the Standard Mono-Directional Roads (SMDRs) in the wrong direction, a clear breach of the SMDR Act, causing inconvenience to the GOvernment officials charged with keeping traffic flowing in the correct direction; such people shouldn't be allowed to drive at all, J had maintained for years.

No, it was peaceful now in the city, quiet, silent, still; easy driving with a cooling breeze on your face and a calming effect on your mind and body.

The silence became even more powerful towards the inner city. The shops were closed as they had been closed at night ever since the beginning of the New Republic (NR), and as was required by the Uniform Shop Closing Act(USCA). It wasn't safe to stay open, there were too many under-privileged roaming the Pedestrian Walkways (PWWs), looking for an easy means of overcoming their financial difficulties. The GOvernment had frequently made half-hearted attempts to rid society of these elements, but rumour also had it that these people were actually paid by the GOvernment to create just so much disturbance as was necessary for society always to be aware of the need to protect itself against violence from within. Nobody was quite certain if the GOvernment was really involved in this sort of thing, or if, as other rumours had it, it was really the government of the so-called Other Country that caused the trouble. The most likely answer was that no GOvernment here or anywhere else really cared what happened to these citizens and to these downtown areas, because no GOvernment officials lived there. Of course, nobody would say such a thing, and most people would even consider themselves unpatriotic to think it. But then, truth sounds mostly unbelievable and, anyway, nobody really seemed to know what any of the GOvernment Departments (GODs) were doing; so, anything was possible.

J wondered whether there was another country. It was the first time he had really thought about it. Was there truly such a place, or was it just another of the GOvernment's lies, another way of explaining their inability to cope with difficulties, to cover their shortcomings? Possibly, it occurred to J, possibly they will inform the people that his wife had gone to the Other Country; maybe that's what they said whenever they killed somebody accidentally.

There was a bar at the street-corner where J stopped the car. An old neon-sign, looking as if it dated from the last century, which it probably did, was the only indication of life there. J hesitated to go nearer the place; he had not been in this area for years, especially not at night. His car gave him a sense of security, but once he left it, he would be without protection. He had never been in such a low-class bar; his background, his education, his indoctrination forbade him to associate himself with such places and the people belonging to them.

But finally, in defiance of his inner feelings, he walked to the bar. It was the same conditioning which had frightened him a minute earlier, or better, it was his newly found rejection of this background, which caused him to enter with the feeling of just having lost another link of the chain which had bound him for so many years.

The place was very dark. Smoke, not the synthetic kind, bit his eyes. There was a bitter taste in the air. A large fan-blade, at least two metres long, rotated slowly under the ceiling, mixing the clouds, spreading them evenly through the room, giving the impression of fog rolling over fields at night. J moved to the back and sat down at one of the tables, as far as possible from the few lights surrounding the bar. As he lit a cigarette, he contemplated that he would probably have inhaled as much smoke without lighting one himself. He waited patiently for what might happen.

The barman seemed to ignore him completely and continued to wash glasses, then disappeared through a door behind the bar. J waited. Finally, much later, a different man emerged from the same door and approached J. He looked strangely familiar, but J dismissed the thought at once: he didn't know anybody around here. The man's face was covered by a wild beard and long hair. He wore a short coat of coloured corduroy, with furs trimming the neck and sleeves. He looked like something out of a history book, like J imagined Rasputin to have been. But, despite this outlandish dress, J sensed something very sympathetic about him. He was not old, but he had the appearance of a wise man, the eyes of one who knew all there was to know.

"What is it you want, my friend?"

J was surprised to hear the deep, somewhat harsh voice. The man had a faint accent, but J couldn't work out from which district he might have come.

"Give me something to drink. Anything. Please."

J hoped at this point the man would serve him a glass of water or another non-alcoholic drink. He had lost all courage; he had made a mistake in coming here, but it was too late now.

The man returned with a foaming drink of some sort in a large glass and a similar drink in a smaller glass for himself. He put them on the table, and, uninvited, sat down opposite J. He asked, "You have never been here, have you?"

J shook his head. He watched the stranger and became even more interested in him. He was glad the man was talking to him. J wanted to know something, he didn't exactly know what it was, or what he hoped for, but he was sure his companion would be able to provide the answers.

"We've been expecting you", said the barman now. "Not quite so soon, but we knew you would come sooner or later."

J was baffled.

"You must confuse me with somebody else. I am afraid, I am not whoever you were expecting."

J was sorry. That meant that the stranger would leave him, and he would have to drink by himself.

"I don't think so, Mr Giradoux".

J was really shocked. How could the stranger possibly know his name? How could he have been expected? But the man didn't answer his questions.

"That's not important, not just yet", he said. "The main thing is that you are here. Things are not quite ready yet, but you must know that we will be able to help you soon. No, don't ask me any questions. Not now. There is no time and I must not be seen here. You are lucky you came when there were no other drinkers, so that I could talk to you personally. But I have taken too many risks already. Other patrons might arrive at any moment. I have to leave you now, but remember that we will help you. Soon."

The man paused and watched as the first barman returned to the room.

"Here, have one of these", he said, passing J a cigarette. J accepted and lit it. The flickering light allowed J a quick glance into the stranger's face. J was horrified as he realised why the man had looked so familiar. Despite the long beard and hair, J thought he recognised the face of the President at the other side of the table. J tried to light another match to have a better look, but the man was already on his feet. After a quick handshake he left the room by the back door.

J felt foolish. How could he make such a mistake, how could he imagine the President in a place like this? Obviously he was wrong. Probably only a vague resemblance. It must have been the bad light and the drink that made him see things. J pulled on the cigarette. It was the kind that left the bitter scent in the air; it was opium.

J wanted to see the stranger again, but this was not to be. He became very tired after his cigarette, and the bar became increasingly crowded.

J listened with great interest and heightened awareness to the conversations around him. There seemed to be no limitations here, people talked about the GOvernment as if it didn't exist, as if it had no powers over them. They took a number of forbidden drugs in addition to the legal ones, but nobody seemed to worry about it. The drinks were cheap and were consumed in large quantities. The atmosphere was free and daring.

J couldn't believe that this was really happening. He had never been in any place where people dared discuss the policies of their leaders; people here seemed to be totally un-indoctrinated, completely uninhibited. J was amazed, and, to a certain degree, he changed his mind about the lower classes. They were people after all, very real people. Some of them seemed almost intelligent. They were different from what he had been told about them. Was indoctrination just another part of the GOvernment's policies of lies?

The strain of the day and the influence of the consumed drugs showed their effects. J gathered all his strength and left the bar, very tired, but in a strange sense wide awake, he drove back to his residence, to the cold, empty, silent house in the suburbs. His thoughts chased one another, he realised that he was very much under the influence of intoxication, and he was worried about it.

For the first time in years, J left his car parked in the street and stumbled half-asleep into the house, slamming the doors behind him. He could feel the neighbours' eyes on him as he came home so late, as he was so noisy, as he was so undignified in his behaviour, a real disgrace to the whole neighbourhood. But he didn't care. Yesterday morning he might have worried about these people, about what they thought or felt, but tonight, tired and drunk, J really couldn't care less.

He went to bed at once. He didn't even get undressed. As he lay there, he remembered that it had been that same day, in the morning, that he had been here in bed with his wife. Now the bed was empty, big, cold. J tried to rethink the day's events, but he was too tired. His concentration became weaker, his thoughts blurred, grotesque. Dreams allowed him to think out all the frightening possibilities that inhibitions had prevented him from contemplating during the day. Restlessly he rolled from one side of the bed to the other, feeling around for the other body, reliving the day in all its cruelty.

Throughout this time, J was aware of a wish to wake up. Maybe, once he woke, he would find that it had all been just a nightmare, that nothing had happened, that everything was as always, that his wife was lying right there next to him. Maybe the alarm would wake him soon, and they could start their day with breakfast, and go about their normal routine.

* * * * *

© 1996 Maurice Benfredj

don't forget to visit our friends at www.oocities.org