— Arbitrary objective violence — said Graendal.
— A slap in the face — is that not objective violence?
— A real one is. But an action that only this particular person considers a blow to the face, no. Should I explain in more detail?
Sekar nodded, not looking up from his laptop. His fingers flittered over the keyboard. Graendal continued:
— I'll echo the explanation I got once. Take an individual who suffers when someone stepped on his shadow. In some tribes, the shadow is considered a part of the body, so this example is from real life. Should we now respect this custom and protect human shadow as well as the body?
— It's a bad example, some absurd superstition.
— That's why it is a good example. Stepping on one’s shadow objectively does not affect the human body, but he equates them with physical violence. To account for such superstitions, we would have to restrict people’s freedom of movement, which would be objective violence against them.
— Okay, let’s go with your example. Of course it’s nonsense to protect the shadow, but on the other hand, deliberately stepping on another human’s shadow would be mean. And as Dr. Ahmadi said in his speech...
Graendal stretched wearily and yawned:
— Well, of course. We inflated this piglet to size of an elephant.
— Almost — agreed the reporter — about three meters in diameter.
— No, sen Sekar, I mean the piglet from which it all started.
— I'm afraid I'm not quite following, sen Vlkov.
— The story started in one school. A family asked the teacher to ban pens with pictures of the popular cartoon piglet in the classroom where their child studied. They were Muslims, and they have special taboos against pigs. The teacher argued that such matters are the responsibility of the parents. Then the father of the child raised the piglet issue on the parents' meeting , but he wasn’t tactful enough. As a result, he was threatened by the police, and the incident became known to all schoolchildren. A few days later the other children came to class wearing T-shirts with large pictures of the piglet, and even posted stickers with the same piglet around. The Muslim child was hysteric, and the Muslim community appealed to the court against “torture and discrimination”. The court questioned the teachers and students, but found no objective action that could qualify for it. Of course, that was an annoyance to children and their parents, which caused, according to the press, "a pig boom". The culmination was, as you know, in huge helium pig balloons which many residents have raised above their homes, cafes and shops on the Halloween eve.
— Which caused riots that required police intervention — said Sekar — so was it reasonable to let that happen?
— Reasonable for whom? — asked Graendal.
— I mean, maybe it was better to spare the boy’s feelings and to compromise on kids’ pens? The world doesn’t spin around the pig.
There was a pause. Graendal thought for a quarter a minute and then said:
— Pens are the kid’s issue, but the problem is the grown-up one . It’s always tiny things that become the problem: pens, T-shirts, balloons. Our freedom is made up of these tiny things. We teach children to be free on such trifles. As an old book said: freedom is the ability to openly do what others don’t like. In my opinion, that’s a very good definition.
— Are not you afraid that in this way we educate children against mercy?
— No. Mercy, as I said to Dr. Ahmadi, cannot be forced. Mercy is the desire to take care and to protect, not to obey and suffer. Remember what happened fourteen years ago, when the government intended to pave a road through Leal Imo?
— Leal Imo, the Ancestors hill on the Votalevu island?
— Yes. Back then, as you remember, utafoa monuments were not yet protected by the government, and the protection of utafoa personal rights was problematic.
Sekar smiled:
— You bet I remember! My father and older brother stood in the living chains.
— And nobody forced them, right?
— The opposite. Mom was afraid that there would be a fight with the police.
— And we met each other in that chain — Laysha pushed Graendal in the side — remember?
— Yes — he winked to his wife — you even said "it looks like we’re gonna get our butts kicked".
— Aha! And you said, "bet a beer cops will chicken out".
— That's interesting! — said the reporter — tell me more.
Laysha snorted.
— Oh, nothing special. We stood the whole day face to face with the cops. They shouted into a megaphone, "You are resisting police illegally! We will be compelled to use force!". And we shouted into our megaphone, "read your contracts before you get yourselves fired! This is no man's land, and we will stand here until there is a court decision!". By the evening of the second day the bailiff came with papers, the cops got into boats, and went away. That's how I lost the bet, and had to buy this guy a beer.
— I paid for the snacks — recalled Graendal.
— In the pub you did, and later at my home you ate everything I had in the fridge.
— Oh, what was there? A skinny chicken and a slice of cheese.
— An what about four-egg omelette for breakfast?
— Er… I counted them with the chicken, for brevity. Anyway, this is a thing of the past.
— Yeah... remember how you found these warehouses?
— Yes, and you called them dinosaur coffins.
— Which warehouses? — asked the reporter.
Laysha laughed.
— You did not notice? The house is constructed around a warehouse. The nearby ones too. Many atolls had military bases and warehouses, and after the revolution, the foreign military got kicked out of them. They stripped away, of course, everything they could, leaving bare concrete boxes, and the government began to sell them. Right then me and Gren decided to move in together, and were looking for a cheap house. With the money we had, so to speak...
— To be precise, we had no money at all — interrupted Graendal — and then I found an ad about these warehouses. They went for £2000, as good as free.
— They weren’t worth even that — said Laysha — Four walls with holes and no roof.
— I added the roof in a week — he reminded.
— Yeah, you did. You know what he did? Ganged up with two of his neighbo rs, Wang Ming and Rohan Vijay, as madcaps as him at the time, and ransacked the area. Found a broken Second World War aircraft, dragged it ashore with a tractor and tore it apart. So instead of a roof we had half a wing and a piece of a fuselage. Like, a loft with a balcony. And the boarding ramp for stairs.
— Come on, it was just fine, — said Graendal.
— Well, yes. Except that the first storm almost blew us out into the ocean, otherwise all cool.
— Almost does not count. And remember how I made a windmill out of a propeller?
— You bet! It hummed so loudly that it scared the fish in the lagoon.
— But we saved on fuel for the generator. And anyway, are you saying it was bad?
— It’s been great, Gren — she said simply — and it’s great now.
— Why have you never told me this story? — wondered Irji resentfully.
— You never asked — Laysha smiled — and, by the way, now is really time for you to bathe and sleep.
— A minute. Let me just get to level 9 .
— Ten minutes, okay?