The Art of War (32 page)

He breathed deeply, then laughed.
And what if we’re all machines? What if we’re merely programmed to think otherwise?

Then the answer would be, yes, machines get cramp.

It was strange, that feeling of compulsion he had had to come here. Overpowering, like his desire for Meg. It frightened him. And even when it was purged it left him feeling less in control of himself than he had ever been. Part of that, of course, was the drugs – or the absence of them. It was over a week now since he had last taken them. But it was more than that. He was changing. He could feel it in himself. But into what? And for what purpose?

He stared at the Seal a moment longer, then looked away, disturbed. It was like in his dream. The bottom of the lake: that had been the Wall. He had sunk through the darkness to confront the Wall.

And?

He shivered. No, he didn’t understand it yet. Perhaps, being what he was – schizophrenic – he
couldn’t
understand it. Not from where he was, anyway. Not from the inside. But if he passed through?

He stared at the Wall intently, then looked down. And if his father said no? If his father said he couldn’t go to college?

Ben got to his feet, turning his back upon the Wall. If Hal said no he would defy him. He would do it anyway.

‘Again, Meg. And this time try to relax a bit. Your fingers are too tense. Stretch them gently. Let them
feel
for the notes. Accuracy is less important than feeling at this stage. Accuracy will come, but the feeling has to be there from the start.’

Meg was sitting beside her mother at the piano. It was just after nine and they had been practising for more than an hour already, but she was determined to master the phrase – to have something to show Ben when he returned.

She began again. This time it seemed to flow better. She missed two notes and one of the chords was badly shaped, yet, for all its flaws, it sounded much more like the phrase her mother had played than before. She turned and saw Beth was smiling.

‘Good, Meg. Much better. Try it again. This time a little slower.’

She did as she was bid, leaning forward over the keys. This time it was note perfect and she sat back, pleased with herself, feeling a genuine sense of achievement. It was only a small thing, of course – nothing like Ben’s playing – yet it was a start: the first step in her attempt to keep up with him.

She looked round again. Her mother was watching her strangely.

‘What is it?’

Beth took her hand. ‘You’re a good child, Meg. You know that? Nothing comes easy to you. Not like Ben. But you work at it. You work hard. And you never get disheartened. I’ve watched you labour at something for weeks, then seen Ben come along and master it in a few moments. And always – without fail – you’ve been delighted for him. Not envious, as some might be. Or bitter. And that’s...’ She laughed. ‘Well, it’s remarkable. And I love you for it.’

Meg looked down. ‘He needs someone.’

‘He does, doesn’t he?’

‘I mean...’ Meg placed her free hand gently on the keys, making no sound. ‘It must be difficult being as he is. Being so alone.’

‘Alone? I don’t follow you, Meg.’

‘Like Zarathustra, up in his cave on the mountainside. Up where the air is rarefied, and few venture. Only with Ben the mountain, the cave are in his head.’

Beth nodded thoughtfully. ‘He’s certainly different.’

‘That’s what I mean. It’s his difference that makes him alone. Even if there were a hundred thousand people here, in the Domain, he would be separate from them all. Cut off by what he is. That’s why I have to make the effort. To try to reach him where he is. To try to understand what he is and what he needs.’

Beth looked at her daughter, surprised. ‘Why?’

‘Because he’s Ben. And because I love him.’

She reached out and gently brushed Meg’s cheek with her knuckles. ‘That’s nice. But you don’t have to worry. Give him time. He’ll find someone.’

Meg looked away. Her mother didn’t understand. There
was
no one else for Ben. No one who would ever understand him a tenth as well. Not one in the whole of Chung Kuo.

‘Do you want to play some more?’

Meg shook her head. ‘Not now. This afternoon, perhaps?’

‘All right. Some breakfast, then?’

Meg smiled. ‘Why not?’

They were in the kitchen, at the big, scrubbed pine table, their meal finished, when there were footsteps on the flagstones outside. The latch creaked, then the door swung outward. Ben stood in the doorway, looking in, his left arm held strangely at his side.

‘That smells good.’

His mother got up. ‘Sit down. I’ll cook you something.’

‘Thanks. But not now.’ He looked at Meg. ‘Are you free, Megs? I need to talk.’

Meg looked across at her mother. She had been about to help her with the washing. ‘Can I?’

Beth smiled and nodded. ‘Go on. I’ll be all right.’

Meg got up, taking her plate to the sink, then turned back, facing him. ‘Where have you been... ?’ She stopped, noticing how he was holding his left arm. ‘Ben? What have you done?’

He stared at her a moment, then looked towards his mother. ‘I’ve damaged the hand. I must have done it on the rocks.’ He held it out to her. ‘I can barely use it. If I try to it goes into spasm.’

Beth wiped her hands, then went to him. She took the hand carefully and studied it, Meg at her side, her face filled with concern.

‘Well, there’s no outward sign of damage. And it was working perfectly well yesterday.’

Ben nodded. ‘Yes. But that stint at the piano probably didn’t help it any.’

‘Does it hurt?’ Meg asked.

‘It did. When I woke up. But I’ve learned how not to set it off. I pretend the problem’s higher up. Here.’ He tapped his left shoulder with his right hand. ‘I pretend the whole arm’s dead. That way I’m not tempted to try to use the hand.’

Beth placed his arm back against his side, then turned away, looking for something in the cupboards. ‘Have you notified anyone?’

He nodded. ‘Two hours back. When I came in from the meadows. They’re sending a man this afternoon.’

She turned back, a triangle of white cloth between her hands. ‘Good. Well, for now I’ll make a sling for you. That’ll ease the strain of carrying it about.’

He sat, letting his mother attend to him. Meg, meanwhile, stood beside him, her hand resting gently on his shoulder.

‘Why was the keyboard black? I mean, totally black?’

He looked up at her. ‘Why?’

Meg shrugged. ‘It’s been playing on my mind, that’s all. It just seemed... strange. Unnecessary.’

Beth, kneeling before him, fastening the sling at his shoulder, looked up, interested in what he would say.

‘It’s just that I find the old-style keyboard distracting. It preconditions thought; sets the mind into old patterns. But that all-black keyboard is only a transitional stage. A way of shaking free old associations. Ultimately I want to develop a brand-new keyboard – one better suited to what I’m doing.’

‘There!’ Beth tightened the knot then stood up. ‘And what
are
you doing?’

Ben met her eyes candidly. ‘I don’t know yet. Not the all of it, anyway.’ He stood, moving his shoulder slightly. ‘Thanks. That’s much easier.’ Then he looked across at Meg. ‘Are you ready?’

She hesitated, wondering for a moment if she might persuade him to listen to the piano phrase she had learned that morning, then smiled and answered him softly. ‘Okay. Let’s go.’

It was late morning, the sun high overhead, the air clear and fresh. They sat beneath the trees on the slope overlooking the bay, sunlight through the branches dappling the grass about them, sparkling on the water below. Above them, near the top of the hillside, obscured by a small copse of trees, was the ruined barn, preserved as it had been when their great-great-great-grandfather, Amos, had been a boy.

For two hours they had rehearsed the reasons why Ben should leave or stay. Until now it had been a reasonably amicable discussion, a clearing of the air, but things had changed. Now Meg sat there, her head turned away from her brother, angry with him.

‘You’re just pig stubborn! Did you know that, Ben? Stubborn as in stupid. It’s not the time.
Not now.
’

He answered her quietly, knowing he had hurt her. ‘Then when is the time? I have to do this.
I feel
I have to. And all the rest... that’s just me rationalizing that feeling. It’s the feeling – the instinct – that I trust.’

She turned on him, her eyes flashing. ‘Instinct! Wasn’t it you who said that instinct was just a straitjacket – the Great Creator’s way of showing us whose fingers are really on the control buttons?’

He laughed, but she turned away from him. For once this was about something other than what
he
wanted. This was to do with Meg, with
her
needs.

‘Don’t make it hard, Megs. Please don’t.’

She shivered and stared outward, across the water, her eyes burning, her chin jutting defiantly. ‘Why ask me? You’ll do what you want to anyway. Why torment me like this when you know you’ve decided already what you’re going to do?’

He watched her, admiring her, wanting to lean forward and kiss her neck, her shoulder. She was wearing a long, nut-brown cotton dress that was drawn in below the breasts and buttoned above. The hem of it was gathered about her knees, exposing the tanned flesh of her naked calves. He looked down, studying her feet, noting the delicacy of the toes, the finely rounded nails. She was beautiful. Even her feet were beautiful. But she could not keep him here. Nothing could keep him. He must find himself. Maybe then he could return.

‘Don’t chain me, Meg. Help me become myself. That’s all I’m asking.’

She turned angrily, as if to say something, then looked down sharply, her hurt confusion written starkly on her face.

‘I want to help you, Ben. I really do. It’s just...’

He hardened himself against her, against the pity he instinctively felt. She was his sister. His lover. There was no one in the world he was closer to and it was hard to hurt her like this, but hurt her he must, or lose sight of what he must become. In time she would understand this, but for now the ties of love blinded her to what was best. And not just for him, but for the two of them.

‘Keep me here, Meg and it’ll die in me. It’ll turn inward and fester. You know it will. And I’ll blame you for that. Deep down I’ll come to hate you for keeping me here. And I never want to hate you.
Never.
’

She met his eyes, her own moist with unshed tears. Then she turned and came to him, holding him, careful not to hurt his damaged arm, her head laid warmly, softly, on his right shoulder.

‘Well?’ he said after a while. ‘Will you support me against Father?’

He noticed the slight change in her breathing. Then she moved back away from him, looking at him intently, as if reading something in his face.

‘You think he’ll try to stop you?’

Ben nodded. ‘He’ll make excuses. The uncertainty of the times. My age.’

‘But what if he’s right, Ben? What if it is too dangerous? What if you
are
too young?’

‘Too young? I’m seventeen, Meg. Seventeen! And, apart from that one visit to Tongjiang, I’ve never seen anything other than this, never been anywhere but here.’

‘Is that so bad?’

‘Yes. Because there’s more to life than this. Much more. There’s a whole new world in there. One I’ve no real knowledge of. And I need to experience it. Not at second hand, through a screen, but close up.’

She looked down. ‘What you were saying, Ben, about me chaining you. I’d never do that. You know I wouldn’t. And I
can
free you. But not in there. Not in the City.’ She raised her eyes. ‘This is our place. Right here. It’s what we’ve been made for. Like the missing pieces of a puzzle.’ She paused, then, more earnestly, she went on, ‘We’re not like them, Ben. We’re different. Different
in kind.
Like aliens. You’ll find that out.’

‘All part of Amos’s great experiment, eh?’

‘Maybe...’ But it wasn’t what she had meant. She was thinking less of genetic charts than of something deeper in their natures – some sense of connection with the earth that they had, and that others – cut off by the walls and levels of the City – lacked. It was as if they were at the same time both more and less advanced as human beings, more primitive and yet more exalted spiritually. They were the bridge between Heaven and Earth – the link between the distant past and the far future. For them, therefore, the City was an irrelevancy – a wrong direction Man had taken – and for Ben to embrace it was simply foolish, a waste of his precious time and talents.

Besides which, she needed him. Needed him as much – though he did not see it yet – as he needed her. It would break her heart to see him go.

‘Is that all?’ he asked, sensing she had more to say.

She answered him quietly, looking away past him as she spoke. ‘No. It’s more than that. I worry about you. All this business with morphs and mimicry. I fear where it will take you.’

‘Ah...’ He smiled and looked down, plucking a tall stem of grass and putting it to his mouth. ‘You know, Meg, in the past there was a school of thought that associated the artist with Satan. They argued that all art was blasphemy – an abrogation of the role of the Creator. They claimed that all artists set themselves up in place of God, making their tiny satanic palaces – their pandemoniums – in mimicry of God’s eternal City. They were wrong, of course, but in a sense it’s true. All art is a kind of mimicry, an attempt to get closer to the meaning of things.

‘Some so-called artists are less interested in understanding why things are as they are than in providing a showcase for their own egotism, but in general true art – art of the kind that
sears
you – is created from a desire to understand, not to replace. Mimicry, at that level, is a form of worship.’

She laughed softly. ‘I thought you didn’t believe in God.’

‘I don’t. But I believe in the reality of all this that surrounds us. I believe in natural processes. In the death of stars and the cycle of the seasons. In the firing of the synapses and the inexorable decay of the flesh. In the dark and the light.’