The German girl, pigtails flying, was running down into the arena to face her opponent, who was already there: the Polish girl, a large young woman who was wearing a costume our agents one and all found "disgusting" - dirty white shorts and a brassiere. But by then all the costumes had become a matter of individual whim, and often exiguous.
A lot of people were standing up to shout that they hadn't come to listen to "private quarrels."
This caused more interventions, verbal and otherwise: there were some scuffles. In a moment everything was quarrelling and disorder.
George Sherban brought the proceedings to an end. As he did this, a helicopter appeared, directly overhead, very low. It was large, noisy, with violently flashing lights of different colours.
Suddenly everyone was standing, shaking their fists and screaming. It was by then almost completely dark, the torches were flaring: a scene of confusion and impotent rage.
They all streamed back to the camp. By then everyone recognised the "Trial" was over. People were talking about returning to their respective countries. They were hot, dirty, tired, irritable, and very hungry. All night, there were aircraft coming and going. This made it impossible to sleep or to rest. When the light came, everyone streamed away down to the sea, walking, jogging, running.
Not everyone left the camp.
About seven in the morning, a single aircraft came over, flying rather high, and dropped a single well-aimed bomb into the amphitheatre. This was totally destroyed. Some debris fell among the tents. The old white, who was sitting by himself not far from the amphitheatre, was hit by a piece of stone and killed. No one else was hurt.
When the thousands of young people came streaming back, they found a scene of devastation. Some left at once, making their way on foot to towns and villages along the coast where they could begin their long and dangerous journeys home.
By that night very few were left. The camp had been dismantled, the disgusting latrines filled in, the local people had gone.
Our Chinese delegates were taken away by special coaches.
Resentment and anger were expressed, as it was seen that food had been brought, and our delegates were already eating and drinking as they were driven away.
By next morning there was nothing left but the usual half-starved dogs nosing about.
So much for the "Trial."
While it was still in progress, I was getting reports of rumours - very strong and persistent - particularly in India and Africa, that there were plans for "mass transfer of populations" to all parts of Europe. By implication, these included plans for pogroms and massacres and the compulsory attachment of land. The rationale for these invasions was always variations on the theme of the white man's culpability, that he had "proved himself unfit to play his part in the brotherhood of nations."
Our attitude was expected, was assumed, to be one of sympathetic noninterference.
Shortly after the delegates left Greece, scattering over the world, these rumours ceased.
Are we then to believe that the highly rhetorical and oversimplified (though of course in essence entirely correct) "indictments" had exhausted a certain allowance of anger and desire for revenge? Or that these young people returning home with an account of what had taken place, a description of the arguments and counterarguments used - this had the effect of damping certain fires?
I am without any rational explanation. But the fact is, coincidence or not, massacres, a determined and planned wiping out of the remaining European populations was on the cards, and being actively endorsed - and now nothing is being heard of it.
This rather minor, and bizarre, and suspect event, the "Trial," to begin with almost a joke (not I hasten to add because of its subject), is in fact being commented on everywhere.
This although we allowed no news coverage. Of course accounts - inadequate and inevitably garbled - found their way into the newspapers of the world, including the official organs of the People's Will. But always in a minor and unemphasised way. There was no television, and it was mentioned hardly at all on the official radio wavelengths.
The question of George Sherban. This "Trial" succeeded in elevating him to a position of undisputed leader and spokesman, even though he spoke, during the "Trial" itself, perhaps not more than a score of sentences. What did he expect to gain by this exposure of himself in this particular way? Which was accomplished, I remind you, without even the aid of certain positions he could have had for the asking?
I can only report that whatever one may have reasonably expected to happen, the fact is that he disappeared when the "Trial" was over. No one seems to know where he is, and yet the Youth organisations and Armies of fifty countries are clamouring for him to visit and "instruct."
Many of the delegates to the "Trial" have also disappeared, and people with whom they are known to have been in contact.
What were the subjects of conversation during those daysand nights when he was always on view in the camps, talking, discussing, "holding seminars"?
Studying my informants' reports, I can come to no conclusion.
He is a fluent and witty conversationalist - yet on no particular subject. He makes a strong impression, yet does not seem to leave people with the memory of strong opinions. He does not take any particular political stand, he has never stood for a class or other position that could be defined. Yet he is trusted by young cadres for whom politics are everything.
Our Agent Tsi Kwang when reporting conversations she was - obviously - fascinated by, since she mentions over and over again that she has been in his company, says, "The delegate George Sherban fails to satisfy the soaring aspiration of the People's glorious militancy. He lacks revolutionary sweep. He lacks an ability to base his actions on the highest interests of the broad masses. He suffers from wishy-washy idealism and enthusiasm for humanistic ideas unrelated to concrete requirements. Weak-minded elements with insufficient bases in correct doctrine find his utterances attractive. He should be exposed and re-educated."
I have reissued instructions for his elimination.
I send you comradely greetings. My remembrances, memories of an old friendship are one of the few pleasures of my exile.
[This Overlord was recalled shortly after. His friend Ku Yuang had already been removed from his position by an opposing faction. Both were sequestered, and underwent "beneficent correction" until their deaths. Archivists.]
History of Shikasta, VOL. 3014, Period Between World Wars II and III. SUMMARY CHAPTER.
This was a period of furious activity.
The inhabitants of Shikasta, engaged in destroying themselves, soon to face the intensive, if short, final phase of their long orgy of mutual destruction, were not entirely unaware of their situation. A feeling of foreboding was general, but was not commensurate with the situation, nor specific to the various dangers. Alarms and warnings were frequent, but related to an aspect or part of the situation: these preoccupied them for a while, and were then forgotten as another crisis arose and seemed overriding. A few Shikastans, and in all countries, understood quite well what was happening.
Shikastans, then, in every country, scurried about like insects when their nest is threatened: a breach has been made, and in that place repairs must be effected. And of course, talking went on continuously and always and everywhere; councils, conferences, meetings, discussions, were held all over the planet, some of these purporting to be in the interests of Shikasta as a whole, but the habit of partisan and sectarian thinking was too ingrained for these to be of use.