“In our societies, do you mean?” asked M. Bonjour. “But of course.”
“Don’t cause me to laugh. I mean in our jobs. We want to protect our careers. Mr. Jenkins here, and the rest of us, are mere figureheads. The actual decisions in the U.S. have, for the last ten years, been made by John Glatt and those around him. This is so, not only because the people demanded it, but because we ourselves demanded it. We had no choice but to beg Glatt to rescue us with his community of businessmen, and to accede to his demands. We eliminated taxes. We amended what was left of our Constitution to protect production and trade. We removed all restrictions on manufacturing and scuttled all product safety requirements and food and drug purity laws. We did it in the name of freedom.”
“One is aware of this,” Signore Tortellini said coolly. “What now?”
“What now? I will tell you, my friend. This Strike has shown the American people that they can feel proud and alive, that they can love existence, just as much when government provides no social services, as when it provides many. They are discovering that such things as poverty, anxiety, fear, starvation, misery, and despair, endured in the context of physical squalor and societal turmoil, are nothing compared to the exhilaration experienced in the presence of true freedom. It is only a matter of time, then, until they conclude—with, no doubt, Glatt’s assistance—that they need no government at all.”
The room was silent, as if the individuals in it did not permit themselves to speak or possessed no will to do so.
“But see here, Professor old chap,” Sir Lord Blimey objected. “Surely one needs a government for national defense.”
“One does not, sir,” Professor Davis said, lighting his pipe and filling it and puffing on it wisely. “One needs only an army—or, as in our case, private security contractors.” The Professor rapped the ash from his pipe into an ash tray with a decisive series of taps. “No, gentlemen, the truth is this: all of us, if we are to retain our jobs, must stop John Glatt.”
“Is question how,” Ivan Lubyanka muttered.
“Just so,” said Dr. Francis Tinklepants. “But we’ve come up with a plan. At least—“ he added in his haste to avoid saying something definite, “I think it’s a plan, and I think we’ve come up with it. As an articulate spokesman who is essentially a coward, I could be wrong.”
“All right, Frank, all right,” Mr. Jenkins said, clearly uncomfortable with this meeting, and with existence. “Here’s the idea. You boys—“ He gestured toward the heads of the People’s States. “—declare war on us.”
There was an explosion of befuddlement, outrage, and indignation. M. Bonjour called the idea “extreme.” Sir Lord Blimey asked, “What will that accomplish, exactly?” Signore Tortellini dismissed the idea with “Bah. Ridiculo,” and a rude, typically Italian gesture. Ivan Lubyanka looked cautiously intrigued.
“Okay, settle down,” T.T. Mucklicker yelled. “Now just hold on to your horses. Think about it. You declare war on us. We announce a wartime footing and maybe introduce a bit of martial law. Then we proclaim Glatt and his pals as the cause of all this, and we take them into custody for questioning. We let them out in maybe a hundred years or maybe never. We bring back the laws that once made America synonymous with edible broccoli, you end the embargo, and everybody goes back to work. Especially us.”
There was a minute’s silence as all in the room contemplated the idea. Finally Ivan Lubyanka said, “Could work.”
“But on what basis will we declare war?” Sir Lord Blimey asked. “We’re already applying an embargo. If anything, it’s you who should declare war on us.”
“We thought of that,” Mr. Jenkins bleated. “But in order to rally the whole nation behind us, we need the country to feel like it’s being unfairly victimized. It works better if you attack us than if we attack you.”
“You realize, gentlemen,” Sr. Tortellini said. “That when you are talking about the rest of us, you are referring to the entire world—every nation on earth except your own. If there really were a state of war between you and all of us, we probably could defeat you.”
“Slim to none chance,” T.T. Mucklicker said. “You forget, Giuseppe—your people love us. They’re rising up against you because they miss us.”
“Look, everyone,” Mr. Jenkins yelled. “There isn’t going to be any real war. Nobody is going to mobilize their army or kill anyone. It’s all just to give us a pretext for seizing John Glatt and his friends. Agreed?”
Seven heads nodded silently as everyone said, “Agreed.”
Chapter 8
Anti-Maim
The Tagbord Special hurtled through the night, traversing farmland and undeveloped rural tracts, past cozy encampments of families clustered around blazing campfires, the men rising to their feet at the approach of the roaring train to lift an arm in hearty greeting, the women’s faces illuminated by the ruddy orange light of the fire and smiling softly as their children gazed in wide-eyed wonder and sucked on fresh carrots pulled from the living earth not five minutes earlier. Occasionally Dragnie would hear a muffled thud from the rear of the executive car, as an ambitious vagabond would attempt to clamber aboard the car’s entry steps but, finding his way blocked by her security men, would leap or be helped off a moment later. Over the four weeks they had been conducting this tour, Dragnie and Banden had become used to the sight of three or four stowaways who, having clung to the rear of the last car for hundreds of miles, ducking low to avoid detection and enduring weather ranging from northwest downpour to southwest desert heat, leaped off at the next station when the train stopped to take on water. They would then scramble away over the weed-choked sidings or through the dilapidated terminal building and into the town, in their endless quest for economic opportunity and the realization of their deepest values.
She thought about what one such man had said to her in her own office car as the train barreled across the verdant, moist bottomland between Pensacola and Tallahassee on its gleaming rails of light, strong, vitamin-enriched Rawbonium. “You’re Glatt’s wife, aren’t ya,” he said, combining insolence and respect. He was young, in his twenties, with a week’s worth of beard and wearing dungarees and a blousy shirt, and looked like a handsome movie star who, once seen, could never be forgotten. She could tell he found her physically attractive but was even more attracted to and intimidated by her mind. “You tell your husband something from me,” he said with virile directness. “You tell him that we ain’t got nothing. No job, no food, no home, nothing. When a man can’t sell his crops, and he can’t sell his manufactured goods, and he can’t sell what the smart boys call durable goods, well then he ain’t got no business. But we do got one thing, ma’am. We got our freedom. We’re free to look for work until we find it. And then we’re free to not find it. And then we’re free to slap our wives around if they give us any sass, and we’re free to say things about the black man and the Chinaman and the Jew and the faggot if we want to, because that’s what freedom means. And that’s what’s important. God bless you and your husband, ma’am.” Dragnie had just enough time to thank him before her security men escorted him off the train as it raced on into the night.
The Special pulled into Charleston, South Carolina, at ten o’clock that evening. Nathan A. Banden had announced his intention of strolling the city’s streets in an effort to find sources of entertainment and amusement, but Dragnie had uncharacteristically declined his invitation. She did not feel well. Dinner that evening had left her nauseated, its aroma, normally enticing and pleasurable, a torment. She was also unusually fatigued and wished only to lie down and not smell anything. But she was unable to specify the source of her discomfort, as if a symptom of a disease were a saboteur of the factory of her body, and had infiltrated its defenses to inflict damage covertly, without possessing the honor and decency to do so to her face.