BARBARA RAGG WAS not sure whether Hugh had anything more to say. The story he had told had engaged her completely, and she had not questioned him on any aspect of it. But now she found herself desperate to know how the situation had resolved itself—if it had resolved itself: a novelist might tie up all remaining loose ends, but life did not necessarily do the same. The circumstances that came about often petered out in a lame way; characters who had been central to the narrative simply went away, sometimes without any explanation. They died at the wrong time, leaving things unsaid, things undone. Great hopes came to nothing; the wrong people won; the ship that was due to come home so gloriously never even made it to port, or was empty when it arrived.
Such was real life; the novelist, however, did not always accept it, and as often as not pandered to the reader’s strong desire that things should work out in the end. Like William’s friend Maggie, Barbara had read her Iris Murdoch, and remembered that in one of her novels, after some sort of resolution has come to all but one of the characters, the remaining person in the tale—an echt psychopath—has yet to be dealt with. He has to change: he has to become good. But how is this to be achieved? Let incredulity be strained, even to breaking point: he sees a flying saucer and is utterly transformed morally.
Barbara looked at Hugh. “So,” she said. “So you had the chance to escape but didn’t take it?”
There was undisguised misery in his voice as he answered. “I’m afraid I didn’t.”
She considered this. “You needn’t reproach yourself, you know. It’s a well-known phenomenon, I believe. The captive begins to identify with the captors. The psychological strain is just too much for some people, and they give in and join what appears to be the more powerful side.”
In his misery, Hugh appeared not to have absorbed her message. “I should have taken the opportunity,” he said. “There would have been no danger. I should have—”
She leaned forward. “Listen, Hugh. Just listen to me. You never blame somebody for what they do in conditions of constraint. You just don’t. It’s as simple as that.”
She thought at first that he wanted to believe her—and would. He seemed to wrestle with the idea for a few moments, and then for a brief while to cheer up. But the downcast, abnegating look returned, the expression which seemed to deny the possibility of release that an excuse might entail; the look of guilt which she found strangely unattractive. Guilt does not endear; it may provoke sympathy, but it does not endear.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t work, Barbara.”
“What doesn’t work?”
“The idea that I let myself off the hook because I was not free to do otherwise. I was free.”
She shook her head vigorously. “No, you weren’t. You weren’t, Hugh.” She marshalled her thoughts. “Look, if somebody does something because he is in a certain position, then the fact that he is in that position at all becomes relevant.” She paused. “Do I make myself clear?”
He answered quickly. “No.”
She tried again. “Take the case of a soldier—a conscript. He has no choice about going into the army—if he refuses, let’s say he’ll be put into prison or shot or whatever. Now, once he’s in the army, he’s not exactly a free agent, is he? He has to obey orders, and he knows that if he doesn’t he’ll be punished severely—maybe even put in front of a firing squad. Can we blame him for what he does in those circumstances?”
Hugh frowned. “But we do, don’t we? A soldier has no defence if he obeys a manifestly illegal order. Wasn’t that what Nuremberg was all about?”
Barbara thought about this. Hugh was right: soldiers were generally not allowed to claim a defence of superior orders when they had carried out an atrocity. But did that apply to the rest of us?
“I suppose we do blame soldiers,” she said. “But I must admit I feel rather uncomfortable about it. Blame the men at the top—the colonels, the generals, or whatever—but not the men lower down.”
“You can’t do that. The whole point of the principle is that it deters people. If the men at the bottom won’t do the dirty work, then the dirty work won’t be done.”
Barbara felt frustrated. She wanted to give Hugh some psychological absolution, and he was resolutely arguing his way out of it. Did he want to feel guilty? Some people, she reminded herself, need guilt. It was a form of masochism, perhaps; feeling guilty also made one feel more important, it defined one.
“Hugh,” she began again, “you really mustn’t blame yourself. This whole discussion about soldiers is off the point. There are reasons why we hold soldiers responsible—it’s different with ordinary people. The world isn’t going to change one iota if we say that somebody who becomes a gigolo because he’s kidnapped has no choice. It’s absurd to blame yourself for something you didn’t start.”
“A gigolo,” he said morosely. “I was a gigolo.”
Barbara’s irritation now showed. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Hugh, get a grip.”
He looked at her reproachfully. “Get a grip? Get a grip? Is that how you think one deals with something like this? Is it, Barbara? Because if it is, I think you’re being seriously unsympathetic.”
“Oh shut up, Hugh. This is getting ridiculous. You’re wallowing in self-pity, and I’m afraid I don’t find it very attractive. Especially in a man.”
He stiffened. “Especially in a man? So you think there’s one rule for men and another for women? We have to be all tough and self-controlled. We’re not allowed to cry. We’re not allowed to dwell on our hurt. Is that what you think, Barbara?”
“Well, since you mention it, I think men shouldn’t use expressions like ‘dwell on our hurt.’ Men shouldn’t say things like that. Sorry, but that’s my view.”
He became silent, and she thought, with utter clarity: I’ve lost him.