8.

There is not much time left, Dr. Reuben. I know that.

I have selected you as the midwife, so to speak, to deliver something to my son. This is not because I trust you. It is not because I don’t trust you, I hasten to add, but I know what I’m up against. I know you are watched and followed. I know your files on me will probably disappear. This is not without precedent in recent political history, is it? the theft of psychiatric files. For this reason, even to you, I cannot speak frankly, but I must speak passionately.

I have only this one thing of value to leave behind—the truth.

All my planning, including my offering myself up to you as a patient, is geared toward this single end: the preservation of what I am leaving behind.

Truth will out, I believe that, even though not one living person can be trusted as its bearer. You will think my lack of trust is part of my condition, and it is part of my condition, of course, but my condition is not one that is listed in your Dictionary of Mental Disorders. I see by the twitch of a nerve at the edge of your mouth that you are convinced otherwise. I let that go. I can’t trust you. Nevertheless, I believe you will be sufficiently constrained by professional and ethical requirements to carry out my last will and testament to the letter.

I want you to hand-deliver to my son the key to a locker. This locker will contain a certain package.

I do not have much time.

Tonight, I will need to see Anna, and then—

Have you any conception, Dr. Reuben, of the physical pain of moral torment?

It needs leeches, Dr. Reuben. It needs to be bled. It needs flogging …

I’m sorry, what was I …?

There are certain things, Dr. Reuben, that once seen …

Scipio wept at Carthage, did you know?

I can put my finger, now, on the moment where I should have … on the crucial moment. But the trouble is, we don’t recognize that moment until it is past. I should have stood there with Nimrod. That should have been the turning point. Here I stand, I should have said, against unacceptable risks, against unconscionable collateral damage. But if I had said that then, I’d be where Nimrod is now.

Would we have achieved anything?

Could anyone have stopped Sirocco? Can anyone stop him?

And then there is the major problem of the evidence that cannot be put in code for its own protection. How can I keep the videotapes safe? I’ve been obsessed with this question. We do not yet know how to code such things. We know how to interfere with transmission, how to scramble signals … but we don’t know how to preserve them. We don’t know how to damage-proof a tape.

The originals I had to surrender thirteen years ago, but the copies that I made, the illegal copies …

What a poor frail vessel nylon tape is, magnetic tape, when what I need is a Rosetta Stone to go through time.

Let me ask you something, Dr. Reuben.

Have you ever worn …? No, of course not. Of course you have not. But I make the recruits wear the masks and decontamination suits for six hours straight while they unload heavy equipment, not that six hours will give us any reliable gauge of anything much, but that’s the maximum permitted in training routine. Wipes out half of them, and I’m speaking of the cream of the crop, perfect physical and mental specimens. Hallucinations, drowning in their own sweat and vomit. It’s like being wrapped alive in your shroud.

It’s a … it’s not a fate that …

Needs to be bled. Needs flogging.

I will need to see Anna tonight.

Are you taping me, Dr. Reuben? If you’re taping me, I want to say this for the record: Sirocco is not the worst of it. The worst is seeing and not intervening to stop. The worst is that this happened under hi-tech surveillance. The worst is those who watched and monitored and voted: acceptable collateral damage.

After certain kinds of knowledge, it is not possible to …

Will you give me your word?

I don’t know how to impress on you the importance, given that I am automatically tongue-tied, given that certain words, if I were merely to say them, would damage the chances of the evidence being preserved. If there is a single word that I wish I could chisel into stone, it is hostages, but I dare not say it. I dare not risk saying it.

I think, Dr. Reuben, that this will be the last time I see you.

I’m too big a risk now, and I have to be erased. I know the rules, and I’ve always played by them until now.

I know I don’t have much time.

I want to give you this key. Will you give me your word and your hand in return?