"You really hate jokers, don't you?" Peanut whispered as they moved closer to the stage. The grass was torn and muddy under their feet, littered with newspapers and political tracts. It was another thing she detested about this hell; it was always crowded, always filthy. "Shroud, he told me what your brother preached. The Nur don't sound awful different from Barnett."
"We… the Qur'an teaches that God directly affects the world. He rewards the good and punishes the wicked. I don't find that horrible. Do you believe in God?"
"Sure. But God don't punish people by giving them no damn virus."
Kahina nodded, her dark eyes solemn. "Then yours is either an incredibly cruel God, who would inflict a life of pain and suffering on so many innocents; or a poor, weak one who cannot stop such a thing from happening. Either way, how can you worship such a deity?"
The sharp rebuttal confused Peanut-in the days since she'd been here, Misha had found the joker to be friendly but extraordinarily simple. He tried to shrug, his whole upper body lifting, and tears welled in his eyes. "It ain't our fault-" he began.
His pain touched Misha, stopping her even as she started to interrupt. Again she wished for the veil to hide her empathy. Haven't you listened to what Tachyon and the others have hinted at between the lines? she wanted to rage at him. Don't you see what they don't dare say, that the virus amplifies your own foibles and weaknesses, that it only takes what it finds inside the infected person? "I'm sorry," she breathed. "I'm very sorry, Peanut." She reached out and brushed her shoulder with her hand; she hoped he didn't notice how the fingers trembled, how fleeting the touch was. "Forget what I said. My brother was cruel and harsh; sometimes I'm too much like him."
Peanut sniffed. A smile dawned on his sharp-edged face. "S'okay, Misha," he said, and the instant forgiveness in his voice hurt more than the rest. He glanced at the stage, and the valleys deepened in his craggy skin. "Look, there's Hartmann. I don't know why you and Gimli got such a beef against him. He's the only one who helps…"
Peanut's observation trailed off at that moment the packed masses around them shoved fists toward the sky and cheered. And Satan strode onto the stage.
Misha recognized some of those around him: Dr. Tachyon, dressed in outrageous colors; Hiram Worchester, rotund and bloated; the one called Carnifex, staring at the crowd so that she wanted to hide herself. A woman stood beside the senator, but it wasn't Sara, who had also been in her dreams so often, with whom she'd talked in Damascus-Ellen, his wife, then.
Hartmann shook his head, grinning helplessly at the adulation that swept through the crowd. He raised his hands, and the cheering redoubled, a roaring crowd-voice echoing from the skyscrapers to the west. A chant began somewhere near the stage, rippling back until the entire park resonated. "Hartmann! Hartmann!" they shouted to the stage. "Hartmann! Hartmann!"
He smiled then, his head still shaking as if in disbelief, and then he stepped to the battery of microphones. His voice was deep and plain and full of caring for those before him. That voice reminded Misha of her brother's; when he spoke, the very sound was truth. "You people are wonderful," he said.
They howled then, a hurricane of sound that nearly deafened Misha. The jokers pressed around the stage, Misha and Peanut thrust forward helplessly in the tidal flow. The cheering and chanting went on for a long minute before Hartmann raised his hands again and a restless, anticipatory hush came over the crowd.
"I'm not going to stand up here and feed you the lines you've come to expect of politicians like me," he said at last. "I've been a long time away and what I've seen of the world has, frankly, made me feel very frightened. I'm especially frightened when I return and find that same bigotry, that same intolerance, that same inhumanity here. It's time to quit playing politics and taking a safe, polite course. These aren't safe, polite times; these are dangerous times."
He paused, taking a breath that shuddered in the sound system. Almost exactly eleven years ago, I stood in the grass of Roosevelt Park and made a "political mistake.' I've thought about that day many times in the past years, and I swear to God that I've yet to understand why I should feel sorry for it. What I saw before me on that day was senseless, raw violence. I saw hatred and prejudice boiling over, and I lost my temper. I. Got. Mad:"
Hartmann shouted the last words, and the jokers shouted back to him in affirmation. He waited until they had settled into silence again, and this time his voice was dark and sad. "There are other masks than those which Jokertown has made famous. There is a mask which hides a greater ugliness than anything the wild card might produce. Behind that mask is an infection that's all too human, and I have heard its voice in the tenements of Rio, in the kraals of South Africa, in the deserts of Syria, in Asia and Europe and America. Its voice is rich and confident and soothing, and it tells those who hate that they are right to hate. It preaches that anyone who is different is also less. Maybe they're black, maybe they're Jewish or Hindu, or maybe they're just jokers."
With the emphasis on the last word the crowd-beast howled again, a wall of anguish that made Misha shiver. His words echoed the visions uncomfortably. She could almost feel his fingernails clawing at her face. Misha looked to her right and saw that Peanut was craning forward with the rest, his mouth open in a cry of agreement.
"I can't let that happen," Hartmann continued, and now his voice was louder, faster, rising with the emotions of the audience. " I can't simply watch, not when I see that there's more I can do. I've seen too much. I've listened to that insidious hatred, and I can no longer abide its voice. I find myself becoming angry all over again. I want to rip the mask off and expose the true ugliness behind, the ugliness of hatred. The state of this nation and the world frightens me, and there's only one way that I can do something to ease that feeling." He paused again, and this time waited until the entire park seemed to be holding its collective breath. Misha shuddered. Allah's dream. He speaks Allah's dream.
"Effective today, I have resigned my seat in the Senate and my position as chairman of SCARE. I've done that to give full attention to a new task, one that will need your help as well. I am now announcing my intention to be the Democratic candidate for president in 1988."
His last words were lost, buried under the titanic clamor of screaming applause. Misha could no longer see Hartmann, lost in the rippling sea of arms and banners. She had not thought that anything could be so loud. The acclamation deafened her, made her clap hands to ears. The chant of Hartmann! Hartmann! began once more, joker fists pumping in time with the beat.
Hartmann! Hartmann!
Hell was noisy and chaotic, and her own hatred was lost in the joyous celebration. Beside her, Peanut chanted with the rest, and she looked at him with revulsion and despair.
He is so strong, Allah, stronger than the Nur. Show me that this is the right path. Tell me that my faith is to be rewarded.
But there was no answering dream. There was only the beast-voice of the jokers and Satan basking in their praise. At least now it would begin. Tonight. Tonight they would meet and decide how to best destroy the devil.
Monday, 7:32 P.M.
Polyakov was the last one to arrive at the warehouse.
That pissed Gimli off. It was bad enough that he wasn't sure he could trust any of the old New York JJS organization. It was enough that he'd been dealing with Misha for nearly two weeks now, putting up with her contempt for jokers. It was enough that Hartmann's Justice Department aces were prowling all over Jokertown after him; that Barnett's rabblerousing had made any joker fair game for the nat gangs; that the continuing battles between the underworld organizations had made the streets a gamble for all.