It was the last day of the Autumn Semester.
Undergraduates were spilling onto the campus. With three weeks of intemperance to look foward to, they were ebullient. Some were horseplaying or kicking balls, others organising revelries and a group, gathered around a guitar-player, were singing ribald songs.
Belkis and I were distributing printouts of a batch of Amador’s poems smuggled out of prison.
Hrant had assigned this lightweight task in consideration of Belkis’s pregnancy.
The undergraduates were grabbing the printouts.
We reached the group of singers and lingered.
The guitar-player picked a couple of poems, read them eagerly and beamed. ‘They’re great! They’d be perfect lyrics. This one here – every breath I take is your breath – begs a Cante Grande! It’s Doleful. Passionate! Hits the soul!’
That drew my interest. ‘Cante grande? As in Flamenco?’
‘Yes. If integrated, it would give pop a terrific new dimension.’
‘Ever thought of trying it?’
‘That’s what my Mum urges me to do! A Jew with Andalusian blood, a salamander from the Inquisition’s autos-da-fé – she says I should be oozing Cante Grande.’
Belkis encouraged him. ‘Mums know. Go for it!”
‘I might. If I can convince myself my songs aren’t run-of-the-mill.’
‘Anything of yours we might have heard?’
‘I doubt it. I cut two CDs. They got lost in the Milky Way.’
‘We’ll look out for them. What’s your name?’
‘Cuenca, Daniel.’
Suddenly Black Marias teeming with Riot Gendarmerie roared in.
The campus rocked with panic.
Daniel hollered. ‘Run! They must be after the printouts!’
We ran but were soon caught.
They nabbed Daniel, too.
As he tried to resist, they hit him and smashed his guitar.
Rounded up with a dozen or so undergraduates, we were whisked to Homeland Security’s Headquarters, a flashy skyscraper in the administrative complex dominated by a large statue of Numen.
As they frogmarched us, an undergraduate shouted. ‘Welcome to Lubyanka, comrades!’ Coshed mercilessly, he was dragged away.
We were hauled into a bare, freezing hall. We squatted where we could. Daniel, battered and distraught, slumped against a wall.
We counted eight interrogation rooms. According to those who had been lucky enough to see daylight again, inside each room there was a back door that led to another hall named the limbo. Every so often an interrogator in civvies emerged from one of the rooms and summoned a detainee. Often, he re-emerged minus the detainee.
Daniel, addressed as ‘Jew-boy’, was among the first summoned. Soon after, his examiner came out without him.
We waited some three hours. Finally, an elderly interrogator came over and pointed at Belkis. I stood up with her. He waved a scornful hand.
‘Her first! You later!’
‘We’re together, sir. Always. A couple …’
Belkis squeezed my hand. ‘I’ll be all right.’
I ignored her and pleaded desperately. ‘Please, sir … Please, don’t separate us.’
The interrogator, beguiled, scrutinised Belkis’s stomach. She wasn’t really showing much but his half-smile implied that he had guessed she was pregnant.
That encouraged me. I reasoned that the interrogator must have a family. And inscrutable as he was, he seemed distracted rather than insensitive. More promisingly, there were convivial cobwebs around his eyes. Can someone who looked benign be cruel?
He relented. ‘Very well. Both of you!’ We followed him into a warm office. He sat behind a desk and directed us to sit opposite him. Belkis held my hand to quell my fear. I noted some of our printouts on his desk.
He lit a cigarette and spoke softly. ‘I’m Inspector Willis.’ I nodded respectfully. Wearily, he asked: ‘What induced you to distribute this junk?’ Belkis answered heatedly.
‘It’s not junk, sir. Amador’s poems are life-enhancing masterpieces. You’ll see, sir, if you read them.’
‘I have.’
‘Then you must agree they’re inspirational!’
‘They’re banned.’
‘They shouldn’t be.’
Suddenly he barked. ‘Saboteurs, are you?’
Belkis faced him. ‘How can we be saboteurs, sir? We love all that’s beautiful.’
The Inspector hissed. ‘Missionaries? Preachers?’
I answered before Belkis could. ‘No, sir.’
As ever Belkis had to be precise. ‘We believe in the Great Mother, sir.’
That surprised the Inspector. He rasped menacingly. ‘Some radical outfit? Communists? Fascists? Jews? Supremacists? Ultra-nationalists? Environmentalists? Animal Rights? Some such? Maybe all those?’
Belkis shook her head. ‘Hardly, sir!”
The Inspector stubbed out his cigarette and lit a fresh one. ‘Terrorists then?’
Belkis’ voice turned icy. ‘We’re against all violence, Inspector.’
I backed her up pompously. ‘We believe in the sanctity of life, Inspector. We uphold the commandment thou shalt not kill. And its corollary, thou shalt not hate.’
The Inspector guffawed. ‘Yet it’s those who uphold those commandments that kill the most – on the pretext of saving souls! Are you different?’
Belkis laughed, too, but softly.
The Inspector turned to her sharply. ‘What’s funny?’
Belkis shook her head. ‘Your distorted vision of us. How can we advocate violence, killings, brutal conversions to crazed faiths, wars, when put simply, we are Dolphin children.’
Her defiance and honesty dismayed me.
The Inspector stood up. ‘Dolphin children, you said? Who are they? Who are their leaders?’
‘The Leviathans.’
The Inspector poured himself a large drink, leaned against his desk and sniggered. ‘You mean whales? Based where – in the oceans?’
Belkis ignored the sarcasm. ‘Everywhere. They’re immortals. They’re the men and women who envisioned a better world and are now guiding us.’
The Inspector chuckled. ‘We live and learn. Even from fantasists!’
Belkis bridled. I coughed to stop her arguing. The Inspector gulped down his drink then poured another one. Again, he scrutinised Belkis. ‘Pregnant, aren’t you?’ That surprised Belkis.
‘I didn’t realise it showed yet.’
‘I told my daughter she was pregnant a month before she knew it. Strangely enough you remind me of her.’
Belkis smiled. ‘Really?’
‘She’s older than you. But stupid. A stupid girl. Still hankers for an imaginary world.’
‘I think you’re proud of her.’
‘Proud? Hardly! She fell in love with a Dane. Lives in Copenhagen now. Wants me to visit once she has given birth.’
Belkis touched his hand. ‘You must! She’d be so happy to have you there.’
The Inspector picked up one of the printouts. ‘This poem… Earth never forgets her children; Earth will give them restorative soil: thick and sweet and plentiful ... Poignant stuff …’
We affirmed spiritedly. ‘Yes, sir.’ He took another drink then opened the door.
‘You can go.’
We jumped out of our chairs.
Before we went out, he stopped me. ‘A lesson for you, boy. Thou shalt not kill never meant anything. Bombs and bullets are raining all over the Earth. Death is a hairbreadth away. Remember that.’
Belkis protested. ‘Death is a lie, sir.’
The Inspector turned to her. ‘Stop talking rubbish, Girl.’
Belkis retorted gently. ‘I hope your daughter gives birth to a healthy child. Go to her. Celebrate life.’
For a moment the Inspector looked wistful, then he wagged his finger. ‘Get wise, you two. Give up your illusions of Dolphin children and Leviathans. You’re on the wrong planet. Find a cranny. Hide! Keep your child safe. Now fuck off.’
Belkis was about to argue with him. I dragged her away. As we left, we spotted Hrant. Clad in a cleaner’s dungarees, he was mopping the floor.
As the Dragon’s Teeth run riot, I pull a frantic tourist into a gift shop.
We wait until the arrested are whisked away in police vans.
Mary, an American, screeches. ‘What was all that about?’
‘A quotidian event in our country.’
‘But this is a democratic country!’
‘It is – with a gargantuan lèse majesté.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Gods’ rights. One mustn’t criticise Numen – let alone insult him.’
‘Can’t you fight back?’
‘We do.’
‘With mummeries?’
‘We have the Word – mightier than the sword, as they say.’
‘That’s proven wrong – every time!’
‘Maybe. The imperative is to believe it. Otherwise we’ll be sucked into a quagmire. We’ll fade away lamenting that we could have saved the world had we but kept believing in the Word.’
Mary looked unconvinced but declined to debate further. She wanted to reach the safety of her cruise ship without delay. I agreed to escort her to the city docks.
I linger on a bench by an Admiral’s statue.
The plethora of memorials in adulation of military bigshots is another baleful aspect of the Saviours’ addiction to wars.
I’m surprised – and comforted – that the scent of the sea can still override the pungency of fuel, not least those of the Grand Mufti’s aircraft carrier anchored close-by.
I vent my feelings to Hrant. Wherever he is, he hears me.
‘The only newness the New Generation have brought is a higher coefficient of hatred for Life. Hardly an original observation, you’ll say, and list countless despots who also tried to launch a millennial rule. Yes, but they didn’t have Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles! They didn’t have chemical and biological vapours that discolour minds. They hadn’t yet developed the deceitful enterprise of alchemising Truths into fake-news and Big Lies. The loss of Truth is humanity’s greatest loss because it destroys the Self and facilitates his downfall and enslavement. Today, history’s evergreen ills – fanatical religion, chauvinism garbed as patriotism, xenophobia, relentless exploitation of hatred and demonisation – are laurelled as sacred commandments. Apologies, Hrant. I’m regurgitating your teachings, ranting because I’m still haunted by my betrayal. But my cowardice didn’t surprise you, did it? You’ve known all along that I’m caught in Hidebehind’s cobwebs.’
I feel hands on my hands.
Belkis and Childe Asher.
Belkis kisses me. ‘There can’t be betrayal between us, Oric.’
‘You keep saying that! Say something that offers hope.’
‘Very well. Guilt is fine, but it has to stop eventually. Something more important, hope, chases it away.’
I shake my head. ‘Hope? That’s a daydream.’
‘Think again! You believe your Moses basket lost its rudder. That your compass is broken and you’ve sprung leaks. That life faces defeat, if it hasn’t been defeated already.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you can’t believe that somehow you’re still plugging up the leaks. You won’t credit the way we Dolphineros regenerate and find a way to navigate by the stars. You refuse to see we still confound the Saviours, still affirm that Pachamama wants Life to be sane and vigorous. You distrust the fig we still have!’
‘You have the fig, Belkis. I don’t.’
‘That’s how you try to absolve guilt! Yet you have the fig, too. Despite Hidebehind you give your best – always and bravely. Always will.’
Childe Asher whispers. ‘And your next best will be the best.’
I stare at him. Then at Belkis. Dare I believe them?
Belkis kisses me again. ‘Listen to our son. He’s always right.’
They vanish.