by Scott Sibary
It occurred to her that his use of English had much improved in the time she’d known him, and she almost let her mind be led off by that train of thought.
“However,” he continued, “it’s not a problem for me. I stay true to myself, and do what I think is best. And I try to be understanding. I think the adversity poor people face can make them eager for the extra pay, even if it corrupts.” His analytical voice, at first emotionless, took on a note of fatigue and despair for his conclusion. “But to spy you have to develop the practice of not being genuine, and that is very sad.”
Solveig drew a shallow breath as she tightened from neck to toes. She waited until her jaw relaxed enough to let her speak calmly. “Don’t you think adversity can be a source of strength, rather than lead to moral weakness? It can teach you the discipline to work harder, learn and grow more.”
“Sounds like a problem you had to overcome.”
She found herself staring at a family near them who looked to have a hard, maybe homeless, life. “Compared to the average in our society, yeah. My mother didn’t make things easy for me, at times she even made life difficult.”
“Oh?” He looked astonished.
“Things were tough for her. She wanted me to be strong enough to face the skepticism that came with being poor and fatherless. I guess that’s what drew me to play rugby.” She laughed as though it were ironic.
“Really?”
“I was lanky and awkward, but fast, so I jumped at an invitation from an acquaintance who was recruiting for a new team. I wanted to prove myself, to become more fit and athletic and sociable and able to deal with conflict and . . . and just be accepted. I learned to face danger and tackle it, and I learned to get along with my opponents afterwards. I quit rugby only because of injuries.”
But her argument had wandered. She wanted to say his idea, a bias that the poor were more eager to be corrupted or were more morally suspect than the wealthy, actually exacerbated the inequalities. Yet her feelings had misled her reasoning, her one case hardly a basis for generalizing. And as usual, AnDe had prodded her to chatter on to wherever her thoughts might lead.
And she had lied.
“Actually, I didn’t have a choice about quitting rugby. Several players were injured in a pile up that started with my tackle. The parents who managed the team decided the game was too dangerous.”
“And you took the blame?”
She gave him a startled look.
“Usually happens,” he said. “People will pick on someone else, like whoever acted first, so they can deflect any blame away from themselves. So you were the scapegoat.”
“Yeah.”
“And it’s easier to pick on people who lack the defenses of friends, family, wealth, connections.”
“Yeah.” She caught him observing her out of the corner of his eye.
“In my case, my parents never gave me adversity,” he said. “I had to work around the home, do my studies, and always try to get along with others. That’s why I studied martial arts. The idea is to protect yourself and, if possible, your opponent as well. It’s always best if no one gets hurt.”
She lifted a surprised eyebrow while copying his habit of nodding. He made it easier, sitting side by side without looking much at each other the way they would at work or meals. She imagined an elderly couple sitting on a park bench and musing about their past or things around them: an image too distant to seem real.
“It sounds like you see people only as separate individuals,” AnDe continued, “even though we grow up in social settings. But a nation doesn’t become strong by generating a society of individual warriors, each seeing himself as better or special.”
“If you’re saying that wealth is based on the productivity of people working together, I can’t disagree.”
“Yes. In this country, we stress teamwork and getting along with other people. Didn’t your whole team play better if you all got inspiration from each other?”
There he goes, she thought, straying onto a key issue. “Of course. Training is best done as a cooperative effort. But somewhere you’ve got to draw lines to protect the freedom of individuals.”
“Drawing lines through shades of grey?”
“Why should it be easy? Like, if we don’t give an individual any property rights, we don’t really protect the individual. Maybe you’d say that China experienced that after the Second World War?” She sent him a questioning look.
“Sounds like you see it that way. And?”
“If we err on the other side, if we place property rights at the level of fundamental political rights, then a few people become wealthy and monopolize political influence. They cut back on all the systems that enabled them to get wealthy—schools, transportation, and other things—ensuring that the power stays in their hands. And lo and behold, everyone else effectively loses most of their property anyway!”
“Sounds like the party line.”
“It started to happen in Norway, but was derailed by the plague.”
“It brought down the US economy, and yes, very nearly this country,” he said, and turned to her with a look of “Where are you going with this?” Then, for no apparent reason, he shuddered, and nodded for her to continue.
“But my point is slightly different. I believe we must give priority to the freedom of the individual mind.” She leaned towards him and tapped her temple emphatically. “Even while living in communities.”
“Tara,” she heard him whisper. Probably a memory of somebody, she thought. We all carry so many painful ones.
“And ultimately,” she stuttered, “we live and die in individual bodies. I felt it when I was with the dying. No part of me died; I just suffered. No part of their consciousness lived on in me: only my recollections of them.” Her fingertips dug at the upholstery but failed to catch on the slippery surface, like trying to cling to a memory, or a life, slipping away.
She took a dry swallow and summarized in a calmer voice. “We don’t want our individual potential suppressed by being pressured to conform, to belong to some group or community.”
“But, Solveig, you said you learned to get along by associating with others. Don’t all children need that? You can’t learn that from a book, can you? Allowing too much liberty with too little discipline could be more dangerous than allowing leaders the discretion to apply broad principles.”
Her back began to feel sweaty against the seat. The full carload of passengers presented a picture of conformity in dress and hair style, with a rebellious few who looked ridiculous.
Perhaps, Solveig thought, I have taken this far enough for now. She held up a hand and said, “I’ll just say again that some lines have to be drawn on how much is required of everyone and how much is given to everyone . . . If we do that well, we can have a minimum of lines or rules.”
“Which rules?”
“The rules to protect the individual from society from other individuals. And we need to protect children and prepare them for a more liberated adulthood. We all agree, don’t we, that we have to make some activities and markets illegal, like child prostitution.” She shot him an annoyed glance.
His reaction surprised her: he slumped and uttered a painful sigh. He became like a figure that had exhaled its spirit, leaving a useless, barely living body in the seat beside her. She recalled the painful look on AnDe’s face when she’d mentioned the topic in the restaurant months before. “I’m sorry. It must be a taboo subject. I didn’t know.”
AnDe stared straight ahead, breathing slowly. The rhythmic rolling of the train seemed to slowly massage away his sudden visceral reaction.
“It’s not taboo,” he finally said, his voice soft and hoarse. “It’s the memory of my sister.” He leaned his head closer to her. “She was left by her parents to an orphanage. I think she was about two at that time, and she lived there until she was about twelve, when she had a fight with somebody, ran away and disappeared.” He paused for a couple breaths. “Two years later, she turned up duri
ng a police raid of a brothel where she’d been kept as a prostitute. I’m not completely sure why, but when my parents learned of the raid, they decided suddenly, just like that”—he snapped his fingers—“to adopt one of the girls who had been rescued. So she became my sister. I was eight years old.”
Solveig could only utter, “I see.”
“It seemed kind of weird,” he said in a distant voice. “In fact, I couldn’t understand it. At first I resented the imposition, and her incredibly strange behavior. She spoke badly, acted impulsively, used the bathroom differently, and cried a lot. But I came to like her, because right away she treated me like her little brother: someone to help and a friend she needed.”
“Of course. I imagine you were a big help.”
“It must have helped her, playing that role; maybe she learned it in the orphanage. So we supported each other. I’d try to soothe her when she had nightmares. That was another new experience . . . The day after she arrived, she snuck into my room in the middle of the night, and I woke up to this grey-lit figure, unfamiliar but too real, with her hair ruffled and her hands wet from her face. She asked where she was, how she got there. Wanted me to reassure her who I was. I mean, she came to me, not to our parents. She calmed down as I talked. I came to realize I could make a difference just by chatting with her.
“After a while, I’d wake up on my own, hearing her crying on the other side of our thin bedroom walls. The sounds told my sleeping mind she was in agony, and so I’d go into her tiny room, sit on the concrete floor by her bed, and listen to her. It puzzled me that she blamed herself. She resented herself as though she was the one who’d inflicted the wounds. My sitting there, trying to be understanding, seemed to help.
“She got a lot better on the surface, yet she could never fully exorcise the vicious enemy fostered inside her. I think that’s what made me interested in psychology. Anyway, we became close—really close.”
He was silent a moment as the train rumbled smoothly on to their destination.
“I haven’t heard you mention her before,” Solveig said. “Is she . . .”
“The plague. She might have had a compromised immune system after her time in the brothel.”
“I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.” Solveig managed to bring upwelling tears under control. She moved her right hand over his left, which was resting on his thigh, and hovered it there for a moment before drawing it back.
At Badaling, as at several other locations, the Wall and its watch towers stood reconstructed from the scrub- and ruble-covered mound that crossed northern China. Every year, millions of feet walked the clean stone surface of its ramparts, and Solveig and AnDe in their comfortable walking shoes joined a swarm of several thousand other tourists on the clear June day.
Solveig looked idly upward at a military aircraft passing high above and thought, We might seem as no more than insects swarming on the ground if viewed from too high a perspective.
They continued past the second watch tower, where the teeming crowd still filled the air with a buzz-like chatter. By the fourth tower, the crowd had thinned out and quieted. Solveig watched two children chase each other along the Wall.
She filled her lungs with air and tapped AnDe on the shoulder. “I’ll race you to the next tower,” she said, and sprinted off.
Glancing back she saw him standing jaw-dropped. He then began walking with long strides. Her fleeting feet slowed to a stone-slapping jog on the incline. She stopped, turned, and waited.
When he caught up with her, AnDe aimed her a serious look and said, “You got a head start!” and ran past.
His pace stayed slow and steady even after she passed him. He joined her panting figure at the next tower. The fragrance of the sun-warmed chaparral tingled her nostrils. Simple joys, she thought as they stood in the light of noon. Almost fulfilling.
“Only once before have I been here,” he said, “on a school trip. I can try to play guide, but knowing you, you’ve probably read more about it than I have.”
“You start, and I can add anything extra I might know.”
“Sure.”
He amused her with a sociological analysis about the Wall. Their roles were reversed from the discussion at the Forbidden City. He told of how possibly a million human beings had died in the construction of the series of walls to protect the very system that subjugated them and gave privilege to others. He offered as half an excuse that an established system unavoidably tends to advantage those who direct it, and that the workers usually get to enjoy some of the benefits of their own labor. During the heyday of a dynasty, the Wall could effectively protect the peace and prosperity in which all shared. But, he went on to say, those in charge come under constant pressure from their own class, the one that keeps them in power, to provide more and more. So the systems get stretched and weakened, and eventually they collapse.
His voice became suddenly emphatic as he concluded, “The Wall was breached because it could never be stronger than the people behind it.” His expression suggested a double meaning.
How convenient, she thought, preaching my own view. “I thought you might explain the Wall as a symbol of ethnocentricity, to control contact with different cultures. Aren’t ideas just as threatening to authoritarian rulers?”
“I suppose you could see it from that angle,” he replied, “since you come from a very small and relatively homogenous country. One could feel threatened by differences, maybe?”
“Some do. The more immersed one is in the culture, the more that can happen.” She sighed. “Yeah, we’re always debating what kind of wall to control immigration.”
They moved on, farther from the crowds.
“Well, that’s not as big an issue for us,” he said. “China absorbed the Mongolians, who crossed the Wall and conquered from the north. Our numbers have given us a sense of confidence, in cultural terms.”
Cultural dominance, she thought. “India is similar in size, yet they absorb foreign ideas differently, leading to greater diversity, and . . .” She bit her tongue.
AnDe held up his arms, shrugging. “Well, I don’t know. Their culture and social structure is so different from ours.” His arms fell back to his sides with a slap.
She looked down at her feet, making them take measured steps along the stone surface. She compared the size of her feet to the size of the pavers. Then her gaze flew ahead along the Wall, following the ridge lines into the distance. The stone structure seemed alive, with moving creatures on its back. It offered a decided path, guiding and confining. It seduced one to take its course instead of going one’s own way, as her thoughts often would.
“You haven’t said anything about the architecture of the Wall,” she said.
“Are you really interested? It obviously didn’t guarantee security, but then, how could it?”
“And yet you call your immune system ‘the Great Wall.’ ”
“That was my idea, to make it sound patriotic and good.” His words were almost lost in his chortle. “It’s a little bit satirical: my private sense of irony.” With a wave of his arm, he gestured from the Wall to the horizon. “How could they build a fence or wall and think that this line along the horizon was going to prevent all possible approaches? I guess their options were limited.”
“Well, I don’t know anything about that,” she said, imitating his shrug and way of speaking. “I tend to think it’s by acknowledging the limitations that you enable yourself to go beyond them.”
He stopped looking around, turned, and stood staring at her with probing eyes. “So that’s how you do it? You consider additional dimensions, maybe?”
She froze, choking on the words scrambled in her throat. Then she replied in a lowered voice, “Perhaps I should say no more.”
AnDe stood fixed, examining her more closely and openly than he ever had before. His eyes were soft and friendly, but evaluating. It was as though she had asked his opinion, and he was looking her over to prepare some conclusive judgment on her appearance, such as
whether her clothes precisely fit her personality.
He silently mouthed a word; it looked like her name, or at least the beginning of it. Then his face flushed and his eyes narrowed. A flash of trembling went through him too fast for her to discern its nature: fear, anger, or awe. Each seemed inappropriate, unless he was trying to solve a mystery, such as the keys to her Protection Lock.
Just as quickly, he collected himself, his face almost serene. With a long inhalation he withdrew his gaze, and they resumed their stroll.
“I will tell you,” he said.
As they walked, AnDe gestured to places on the Wall and in the countryside. “The Great Wall must be a learning system. I believe it could become the center of analysis. The WEA will have to learn how to resist pressure from those who want to use it to acquire greater privilege. And the part that does that might be the Great Wall. Understanding human behavior won’t be easy, but, in the long run, it is absolutely essential.
“The Wall will not be bothered by commands that have no relevance in the context of current information, and it should accept anything that creates no foreseeable problems. It has to work on that basis, because it still lacks the judgment to evaluate what users should want it to do in the future.”
That question can stump anyone, she thought.
AnDe used words suggestive of the real Great Wall as well as the virtual one. He confirmed what Per had said about the drives used to test questionable inputs. Then he went further. The labels, analysis, or commentaries made by a unit could be taken up and reacted to by another separable unit that would then have an “understanding” or “cognizance” of what the first unit had done. This could be passed on to and built upon by a third unit, and so on. The process could continue in either linear or hierarchical fashion, depending on whether the commentaries were yielding results—represented in the form of abstract symbols—that fell within predetermined limits for what was to be stored, kept active, or built upon.
Glancing around at the few people nearby, Solveig realized she wouldn’t be able to recognize who might be an agent. She kept a casual distance from AnDe as he continued his explanations.
