A Song Called Youth (31 page)

Swenson knew he was being tested. The John Swenson created by Purchase was supposed to be an expert on the Antiviolence Laws. They’d steeped him in them. He knew the statistics, all right.

Swenson nodded and said, “Violent crime was reduced by twenty percent in the first five years, then by thirty-eight percent in the second five years, and now we’re down forty-one percent. As I understand it, the program as it stands calls for the death penalty for the second homicidal violent crime—the first in cases involving sadism or torture—and for the third occasion of non-homicidal but nevertheless violent crime. Constitutional rights to appeal are suspended after the second conviction. The convict is to be executed within twenty-four hours of conviction, as inexpensively as possible. Senator Chung and Senator Judy Sanchez are leading the fight calling for the law’s repeal . . . ” Swenson paused, wondering if he was reciting
too
well. But Ellen Mae was beaming, nodding encouragingly, so he went on. “They are, I believe, uh, pointing up statistics showing that more people are executed who are later shown to have been innocent . . . But, of course—” He shrugged expansively, as if he couldn’t understand how they could so stupidly miss seeing the obvious. “—the program’s architects knew perfectly well that more innocent people would be convicted, by accident, because of the hastening of the judicial process . . . But because the program reduces violent crime by creating a stronger deterrent, and by taking killer-types not only off the street but out of the world, there are also fewer
victims
of violent crime. Which compensates for the rise in the number of innocent convictees. Victims of crimes are innocent, too.”

Swenson cleared his throat apologetically, as if to say, Sorry about running off at the mouth that way. He looked modestly at Crandall and waited for the verdict.

Crandall grinned and said, “My Good
Lord
but he’s got the gift, don’t he!” He turned to Ellen Mae. “I wonder if Mr. John Swenson here could be convinced to do a little testifying for the CSO when they give their testimony in
support
of the Antiviolence Laws next month . . . ?”

“Well, don’t look at me!” she said, laughing. “Why don’t you ask him? He’s standing right there.”

Crandall lowered his voice to a stage whisper. He pretended to talk to her behind his hand. “You think ah dare tuh?” His accent deepening for the sake of humor.

Ellen Mae giggled.

Swenson thought, The CSO: Commission for Social Order. Controlled by the SA. Funded by the SA’s friends. Advocates of a more “broad-minded” interpretation of the Constitution . . . Advocates of the imposition of martial law in high-crime areas. Most of the country’s military manpower, including the majority of the Reserves and the National Guard, were either fighting the Russians overseas or massed along the USA’s coasts. The implementation of martial law would require that some paramilitary, mercenary, or private police force be hired to supplement the urban police. And the biggest such organization was the SAISC.

Swenson marveled at the scale of Crandall’s ambitions. But was it Crandall—or was it Watson? Or was there someone else, someone less public?

“Well, now, John boy, I was just wonderin’ . . . ” Crandall began, drawling it out slowly to give him his cue.

Swenson chuckled and said, “By some chance I happened to overhear. I’d be honored to testify for the CSO.”

And he’d do it with conviction. He’d been a Jesuit for a few years—and he’d never believed in God. He could be an intellectualized fascist, too. He was good at playing parts, at being anyone but a man named Stisky.

Ellen Mae Crandall came to him just five minutes after midnight, wearing an oversized, remarkably non-erotic bathrobe.

She was playing the lost, weak woman now. Her eyes were large and shiny in the dialed-down light of the hallway. She was carrying what he thought was a glass of warm milk, and her voice was slightly slurred. He smelled brandy on her.

“Hi . . . Could I talk to you about something? I’m sorry if you were asleep. I just—”

“I couldn’t sleep, in fact,” he said, moving back from the door to invite her in.

Swenson was wearing a bathrobe over pajamas. He felt strange in pajamas—he never wore them normally, but they seemed appropriate in this house. There wasn’t even a computer console in his room.

Ellen Mae looked to see that the hall was empty. Then she padded into the room. He closed the door behind her. There was a moment of awkward silence. She held the glass up between them. “You—you really have to try this. It’s my mother’s recipe . . . ” He smiled and took it gratefully, glad he wouldn’t have to do the job without having a drink in him. He sipped and almost spat it out in his surprise. It was eggnog, with brandy in it. Thick, creamy, almost without sweetening. He thought of semen. He said, “Whoa. It’s good.”

“A little libation lengthens the life, my grandmother used to say.”

Quoting her goddamned grandmother, he thought. And then he warned himself:
Get into the role!

She rubbed her eyes. “My eyes are so tired. Looking at a screen all day . . . ”

Swenson knew what that meant. He turned and dialed the light lower. “How’s that?”

“Better.”

“Come and sit down, and tell me about it.”

In the dimness, he almost liked the way she looked. Or maybe it was the brandy.

She sat down beside him; the bed didn’t creak—they never did anymore.

He took one of her hands between his, smiled, and said, “Tell me about it.”

It was all in his voice. He felt her squirm a little with pleasure.

“Well, you know, I love Rick. I really believe in my heart he’s been chosen by God for a special mission. I’d never say this in front of him because he won’t have anyone putting on airs for him, but I truly believe he’s the most important man in the world today. Not because of what he is—but because of what he’ll be. But . . . I have to have some life of my own, outside of Rick. You know—a little more life than Our Work.” She made a soft sound of guilt and indecision. “I don’t know—maybe I’m wrong to want it—”

Again, he knew his cue. “Not at all.”

“But—Gramma always said, ‘Follow your heart.’ ”

He listened to her in wonder. She could talk blithely and with expertise—about demographic surveys, clandestine cellular organization, and security enforcement techniques. And out of the same mouth she spouted this incredible
corn.

“Does—does Rick disapprove when you have a private life?”

“Well—he disapproves of, you know, anything
intimate
that happens outside of marriage. And I have to be very careful about getting married because it’s a media event.”

“Of course. But if you are discreet . . . ”

He could almost feel her blush. “Yes, but . . . it’s a sin.”

Uh-huh,
he thought.

He didn’t believe for a moment that she or Crandall gave a damn, as it were, about sin. Except for the cameras. Not in any real way.

“I understand,” he said gently, pressing her hand. “But—surely God understands your special predicament. And in any event, Jesus said even the worst sinners are forgiven if they genuinely ask. You’ll be forgiven.”

“Oh . . . ” Just melting now. He’d said it right.

She bent and rested her head on his shoulder, tilted up just enough.

He let go of her hand, slid his right arm around her waist, and bent to press her wiry lips with a kiss.

He had been afraid he’d be unable to get it up for her. But his imagination performed the miracle for him. In fact, her angular body was not so different from that copper-skinned boy’s, the boy later found in a ditch with so many holes punched into him, like Saint Sebastian transfixed by arrows . . . It was the image of Saint Sebastian writhing in martyrdom, the arrows so stiff and masculine in his wounds, that made Swenson stiff and masculine, made it possible to transfix her, to pretend, to pretend within the pretense.

How our special pathologies do serve us,
he thought, as he pressed her back onto the bed.

When Rickenharp came out of it he sat up—and almost fell over with the weakness.

“Too soon.” Carmen said, pressing him back. He lay back and felt better. He was still weak, but the gnawing soul-horror was gone. All he felt now, besides weak, was hungry.

The world shook around him, like it was laughing, a growling sort of laugh, and then he put it together. He was in the back of a truck. They were on the flatbed. The light came from the space between the tailgate and the canvas cover over the rusty slats.

It was bluish light, and he thought it might be dawn. The air on his face was cold, but warmth seeped up from the engine, and a faint scent of methane.

“I’m hungry as a bastard,” he said. His throat was dry, he realized as he tried to talk. It came out a rasp.

But she understood. “We haven’t got any food. Maybe next stop, if we’re lucky. Anyway, your fever seems to be gone.”

“Where are we?”

“Northern Italy. North of Naples. You’ve been out for days. Willow . . . ” She paused and he saw the flash of her teeth. “Willow wanted to dump you, more than once. I was inclined to agree with him. Keeping you isn’t practical. But Yukio says you’re some kind of samurai. He wants you along.” She shrugged.

Italy?
Fucking crazy.
He closed his eyes and visualized sausage tied up in strings and platters of steaming pasta.

He could smell the sea in the breeze now, as they took a curve, and a fresh wind hit them.

What was it she’d said?

Willow wanted to dump you. I was inclined to agree with him.

They’d almost thrown him overboard into the Mediterranean. No doubt for the “greater good.”

“My fans,” he muttered.

“What?”

But be didn’t have anything to say to her.

To hell with her.

Ellen Mae was gone when Swenson woke. There was a silk rose lying on the pillow beside him. The brandy-eggnog glass was gone. He had, literally, a bad taste in his mouth.

Swenson sat up and his head throbbed. Wan sunlight filtered through the yellow-curtained windows to either side of the bed.

A discreet tap came from the other side of the door. He groaned inwardly, thinking,
Not her again so soon!

But he put on his robe and said, “Come in.”

It was a uniformed houseboy, an old man with age-blurred eyes, silent except for his labored breathing as he wheeled in the breakfast tray and poured the coffee. Somehow, Swenson was surprised that the old man wasn’t black. But he thought, Of course not, they wouldn’t trust black servants, they could be infiltrators.

The old man shuffled out and Swenson lifted the old silver cover off the plate. Bacon and eggs and biscuits. None of it looked synthetic. It would be interesting to see what they tasted like.

But he almost gagged on the bacon. You could really taste
the animal
in it.

There was a note in an envelope on the tray.

He assumed it was from her, but it wasn’t.

Welcome, John! Meet me out at the front gate at 0900.

—Watson

So Watson was here. Swenson glanced at his watch. Almost eight.

He got up and dressed, muttering, “Oh-eight-hundred. Shit.” But he almost ran to get there on time.

Outside, he found a sky the color of granite, the sun a blur of brass behind the overcast. And the massive posts of the original front gate were granite, old granite torn three centuries before from the ancient New England hills, much of it painted bright yellow and red by lichen. The old stone fence to either side of the gates had fallen down in places. But it didn’t matter; a few feet in from the stone fence the steel-mesh barricades loomed, two of them, crested with concertina wire.

A pair of German shepherds paced restlessly between the steel fences—seeing Swenson they threw themselves against the links, making the fence ring like chain mail as he approached the first checkpoint. He expected the dogs to bark, but they didn’t. They snarled, furrowing their muzzles, fixing their yellow glares on him. He remembered the strong taste of the bacon, and his stomach lurched.

His shoes crunched in the agate cinders of the drive. A helmetless SAISC guard looked at him with a dilution of the same look the dogs gave him. The guard stepped out of a small wooden shack on the other side of the hurricane-fence gate and said, “Name, please?”

Stisky.

He almost said it. And what frightened him was this: it hadn’t been an accident. He badly wanted to say it.

The guard was blond and blue-eyed. The blue eyes were narrowed now. Because Swenson had hesitated.

“John Swenson.”

The guard nodded, his eyes still narrowed. “The colonel’s gone on already. Said you could catch up with him at the chapel.”

The flat blue eyes regarded him steadily, the glare gone, only unflinching appraisal now. The eyes were lined with white-blond lashes, long and soft as a small boy’s.

“Where’s the chapel?”

The guard pointed. It was off to the northeast, half-hidden in the oak trees that fringed the grounds. Looking at it, Swenson felt a spike of ice through his belly.

The chapel was beautiful. And he was afraid of it. Moving like a wooden soldier, he began to walk toward it.

It was a simple chapel of white wood, with stained-glass windows. He couldn’t make out from here what the figures in the stained glass represented.

The chapel stood almost demurely in a stand of oak trees shaggy with moss and mistletoe. Swenson crossed a lawn to reach it, his shoes getting soaked by the dew in the fragrant grass. He shivered. It was a chill, clammy morning. There were wraiths of fog, yet, under the oak trees. Fallen leaves whispered beneath his feet as he walked up to the chapel’s front steps. The chapel was bigger than he’d thought. Room for two hundred.

The oaks creaked faintly in a puff of breeze.

Oaks,
he thought.
Druidic.

He opened the green-painted chapel door.

There were two Nazis, in full uniform, kneeling before the altar, pig-shaven heads bowed in prayer.