This Is the Way the World Ends (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by James Morrow

  In George’s mind the blood-gallows had melted completely away. By God, he thought, we do have a case. We’re innocent after all.

  ‘Spreading outward since the October revolution, the cancer of Russian Communism engulfed country after country. Azerbaijan. Armenia. The Ukraine. Estonia. Latvia. Lithuania. Poland. Rumania. East Germany. Hungary. Czechoslovakia. Item – in 1983, a Prague grocery clerk was sentenced to five years at hard labor for possessing an unregistered mimeograph machine. Item – reliable observers report that, as part of its campaign of terror in Afghanistan, the Soviet army air-dropped toys into the villages for the little boys and girls of the tribes. Each toy was equipped with explosives that detonated when picked up, commonly blowing off a child’s arm . . .’

  Bonenfant had a hundred more items ready. The frigid afternoon disappeared, replaced by a bottomless pit of betrayal and atrocity. Whenever George blinked he saw a little Afghan girl picking up a doll. He could not bring himself to visualize the explosion.

  ‘Why are there no Soviet defendants in this courtroom? Where is the Secretary General of the Communist Party? The Commander in Chief of the Warsaw Pact? The Minister of Defense? Their absence speaks volumes. The framers of the McMurdo Sound Agreement knew there was no point in putting Soviets on trial, so manifestly guilty was Moscow of turning the world into an armory and ruining the peace that was my clients’ daily dream.’

  We’re going to win, George told his spermatids.

  ‘Following a mandate from the electorate, acting with the consent of the governed, the men in the dock sought to check the expanding Soviet tumor using whatever technologies were available. Mr Aquinas has questioned the wisdom of defending freedom with thermonuclear weapons. Permit me to enumerate the successes of this doctrine.

  ‘The Berlin airlift. The end of the Korean War. The honorable resolution of the Cuban missile crisis. Analysts have linked all of these triumphs – and more – to US nuclear capabilities. If history teaches us anything, it’s that tyrants are tempted by weakness and tempered by displays of strength. Does anyone here seriously doubt that, above all else, the Soviet Union respected military might?’

  I certainly don’t doubt it, George thought.

  ‘For nearly half a century, peace reigned in Western Europe. Why? NATO’s theater nuclear forces. During those same decades, the planet suffered no global-scale wars. Why? America’s strategic nuclear forces. This is an astonishing record. Indeed, it is fair to say that, between the Second and Third World Wars, these weapons saved more human lives than penicillin.’

  Before hurling out his final sentences, Bonenfant rose to full height. To George, the advocate had never looked more mature.

  ‘And so I ask – who among your Honors, who among the prosecutors, who among the spectators in this courtroom would have dared renounce such a sturdy doctrine, leaping into the awesome uncertainties of a non-nuclear world? Who here would have dared do that? Who?’

  As Bonenfant settled behind the defense table, Parkman gave him cocoa capped by two marshmallows. He took a long, leisurely swallow.

  Delighted chatter floated through the glass booth. Overwhite remarked that Bonenfant knew his stuff. Wengernook noted that the cancer metaphor was ‘unexpectedly rich.’ Sparrow complained that the advocate had ‘said nothing about their atheism.’ Brat asserted that they had ‘won the opening round, hands down.’ His friends’ happiness gave George a satisfaction he had not known since Mrs Covington had unveiled his forthcoming family.

  He studied the bench. The faces of Justices Yoshinobu and Gioberti had lost the dark flush of unadmitted blood. Eyes shut, mouth drooping, Justice Wojciechowski looked like a man praying to a god in whom he did not believe.

  ‘The tribunal will recess until nine o’clock tomorrow morning,’ said Shawna Queen Jefferson in a hoarse and troubled voice.

  ‘Fellas,’ said Randstable, ‘I think we’ve got ourselves a game.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In Which the Prosecution’s Case Is Said to Be a Grin without a Cat

  Like white paper stalagmites, stacks of documents grew from every flat surface in the courtroom. The documents flowed down the aisles and splashed across the judge’s bench. Day after day, each passing with the speed of a snail navigating glue, Aquinas’s staff read aloud articles from Strategic Doctrine Quarterly by Brat Tarmac. Grim-lipped stenographers scribbled down arms control agreements negotiated by Brian Overwhite. Weary translators repeated descriptions of blueprints bearing William Randstable’s name. The tribunal heard speeches by Robert Wengernook, entire bestselling books by Reverend Sparrow, and a scopas suit sales contract signed by George Paxton. Memoranda, monographs, reports, resolutions, directives, letters, field manuals, and Republican Party platforms gradually entered the record.

  ‘The judges are growing restive,’ observed Randstable.

  ‘Bored out of their trees,’ said Brat.

  ‘Mr Aquinas,’ said Justice Jefferson, pushing documents aside with a windshield-wiper sweep of her arm, ‘the court believes it is time you examined your first witness.’

  Aquinas pulled a deposition from his scopas suit and smoothed it out on the prosecution table.

  ‘In the McMurdo Sound Agreement,’ he said, rising, ‘a date is written, a date so notorious that few of us are willing to speak its name. On this date the Third World War began. According to another calendar, however – the calendar by which we would all have been admitted – something else happened, would have happened, on this date. On this date certain American citizens would have begun to see a way out of the nuclear miasma. Subsequent days would have found them talking among themselves, and then to their children. The children would have grown up . . . The prosecution calls Brigadier General Quentin Flood, United States Army.’

  The witness entered the courtroom at the head of an invisible parade. Assuming the stand, he exuded an aura that George was inclined to call gallantry. He seemed chipped from the Tarmac stone – sturdy, handsome, flamboyant. His scopas suit displayed a mass of ribbons and medals.

  ‘Who could this jerk be?’ said Wengernook.

  ‘Leave it to the Army to give the world another asshole,’ said Brat.

  The rabbity little court usher scurried over, pulled a Bible from his unzipped suit, and asked the witness whether he intended to speak the pure truth. ‘I do,’ said Flood.

  ‘At what age did you gain the continent?’ asked Aquinas.

  ‘Forty-two.’

  ‘According to your memories, would you have founded an organization called Generals Against Nuclear Arms?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Forty-two. That’s young for a brigadier general.’

  ‘Mine was a new breed.’ Flood had a melodious southern drawl. ‘Spoilers, they called us.’

  ‘What did you spoil?’

  ‘Nuclear strategy.’

  ‘As defined by Secretary Wengernook and General Tarmac?’

  Bats leave hell more slowly than Bonenfant got up. ‘Objection!’

  ‘Try another question, Mr Aquinas,’ said Justice Jefferson.

  The chief prosecutor grimaced and asked, ‘Where did you first encounter traditional nuclear strategy?’

  ‘In articles from Strategic Doctrine Quarterly,’ answered Flood. ‘One was “After Deterrence: Options for the Infra-War Period” by Secretary Wengernook over there. Another was “Our Achilles Leg: Triad Theory and Land-Based Defenses” by Major General Roger Tarmac.’

  ‘What was the philosophy of Generals Against Nuclear Arms?’

  ‘That weapons having absolutely no military utility are unfit to be the centerpiece of a great democracy’s defensive posture.’

  ‘It must have been hard converting your elders in the Pentagon to this view.’

  ‘Ever try stuffing a melted marshmallow up a wildcat’s ass? It can be done, but you have to like your job.’

  Strolling over to the prosecution table, Aquinas snatched up the witness’s deposition. ‘A famous and influential book you would
have written – Weapons for What? – would have ended with the statement, quote, “Thus do our nuclear forces corrupt us. They debase and dispirit the ancient and honorable profession of soldiering. They are unpatriotic. We must try to—” ’

  ‘Objection!’ Bonenfant rose fumingly. ‘Your Honors, the defense does not find these glib opinions and unsubstantiated assertions very instructive.’

  ‘Yes – might we hear more of the witness’s actual experiences?’ Justice Jefferson asked of Aquinas.

  ‘He has no actual experiences.’ The chief prosecutor turned toward the bench. ‘He’s one of—’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ admonished Justice Jefferson.

  Aquinas made an awkward about-face, grabbing the stand for support. ‘I see from your deposition that your group endorsed the Einstein VI Treaty. Generals do not normally sponsor arms control agreements.’

  Flood said, ‘We had concluded that strategic nuclear weapons, particularly the first-strike arsenals favored by Wengernook and Tarmac, make a nation weaker, not stronger.’

  ‘Because they continually pressure the other side to preempt?’

  ‘Right. The guy who goes first goes best – you can’t escape that terrible truth.’

  ‘The guy who goes first goes best,’ Aquinas repeated slowly. ‘Thank you, General. The witness is yours, Mr Bonenfant.’

  As Aquinas returned to his team, the chief counsel ambled forward and offered Flood a good-natured grin.

  ‘Let’s get a little blood on the floor, Bonenfant,’ said Wengernook.

  ‘You can’t play nice with the Army,’ said Brat.

  ‘Yeah,’ said George.

  Bonenfant pointed to the witness’s chest. ‘Handsome medals you’ve got there.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Flood.

  ‘I imagine they tell of your meteoric rise to the rank of brigadier general.’

  ‘Some of them would have come after that.’

  ‘Oh? Might any of these medals testify to your talents as a commander in the field?’

  Flood tapped a metal sunburst. ‘I was awarded this one after Skovorodino.’

  ‘Some of us may not be up on our unadmitted history.’

  ‘Skovorodino would have been a major battle of the Greco-Russian War.’

  ‘Which occurred after the Einstein VI arms control agreement went into effect?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Evidently this treaty you’re so fond of permitted further Soviet expansionism.’

  ‘Bull’s eye, Bonenfant,’ said Wengernook.

  ‘Kid does his homework,’ said Brat.

  Flood’s mouth was as straight and rigid as a chisel mark in a granite tombstone. ‘That’s hard to say.’

  ‘Would many Americans have died in the Greco-Russian War?’ asked Bonenfant.

  ‘Almost two hundred thousand,’ said Flood.

  ‘Almost two hundred thousand,’ Bonenfant echoed. ‘You have much on your conscience, General . . . Now, a little while ago I heard you claim that nuclear weapons have no military utility. Suppose that, as a field commander, you had been charged with repelling an attack on West Germany by the Eighth Soviet Shock Army. Wouldn’t a few enhanced-radiation charges be pretty useful to you?’

  ‘West Germany doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Just answer the question.’

  The general’s mouth melted into a frown. ‘Battlefield nuclear weapons might have been useful in the immediate crisis. But after that—’

  ‘Useful, did you say?’

  ‘Useful in the—’

  ‘One final question. Exactly how many Soviet officers belonged to this organization of yours?’

  ‘There were no Soviet military officers in Generals Against Nuclear Arms. However, we did—’

  ‘How many Soviet officers?’

  ‘None,’ grunted the witness.

  ‘Thank you, General Flood.’ Bonenfant strutted away from the stand, a smile strung between his bulging cheeks like a hammock.

  ‘We blew him out of the water, don’t you think?’ said Brat.

  ‘Definitely our inning,’ said Wengernook.

  ‘Definitely,’ said George.

  After lunch Aquinas called to the stand a rosy, elfin woman dressed in a black scopas suit with an inverted collar. She was rolypoly and roly again.

  ‘A lady?’ said Brat. ‘They’re using a lady against us?’

  ‘They’re getting desperate,’ noted Wengernook.

  The witness was sworn in on a Douay Bible, giving her name as Mother Mary Catherine.

  ‘If admitted, would you have been a Catholic priest?’ asked Aquinas.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Female Catholic priests used to be a rare commodity.’

  ‘Times change.’

  ‘Were you also a Vice President of the United States?’

  ‘I would have been, yes.’

  ‘And did you leave office before serving out your term?’

  ‘When I accepted the second spot on the ticket, I had a secret in my heart.’ Mother Mary Catherine’s high, scratchy voice suggested an early Hollywood sound film. ‘I knew that, shortly after being elected, I would resign over my President’s defense policies.’

  ‘And who would that President have been?’

  ‘He’s over there in the dock – Reverend Peter Sparrow.’

  George glanced at the defendant in question. Flabbergasted by the news of his would-be election, Sparrow alternately smiled and grimaced.

  Mother Mary Catherine turned to the bench, winked impishly, and said, ‘Be sure to convict that chucklehead. He thinks a country’s Christianity is measured by the size of its thermonuclear arsenal.’

  Sparrow now wore the look of a boy engaged in wetting his pants.

  ‘Objection!’ shouted Bonenfant, rising. ‘The witness is giving slander, not testimony!’

  As Justice Jefferson instructed the stenographers to delete Mary Catherine’s last remark, a glimmer of chagrin crossed the prosecutor’s face. He denied his distress with a smile and said, ‘Before resigning, you would have used your office in an unorthodox manner.’

  ‘Let’s face it, Mr Aquinas, I was a cut-up.’

  ‘Some of your activities—’

  ‘Stunts. They were stunts.’

  ‘Didn’t you propose a rather strange arms control agreement?’

  ‘I tried to start something called SWAP – the Strategic Weapons Adjustment Plan.’ Mary Catherine folded her hands and placed them on her lap in a neat little bundle. ‘The idea was to let the superpowers build any sort of crazy arsenals they wanted, but with the stipulation that they would trade once finished. No quicker way to get the warheads defused, I figured.’

  ‘You also wanted to set up Genocide Prevention Centers.’

  ‘Telephone hotlines staffed twenty-four hours a day. Whenever a missile engineer got the urge to design some fiendish new weapon system, he would call his nearest Genocide Prevention Center and somebody would try talking him out of it.’

  ‘Tell us about the Preschooler Empowerment Act.’

  ‘If adopted, it would have prevented the Pentagon from contracting for a new type of bomber or missile until its pros and cons had been explained to a four-year-old chosen at random from any nursery school in Washington, DC. Whatever the four-year-old decided, that was the weapon’s fate.’

  A dozen spectators held up a huge banner. WE LOVE YOU, MOTHER MARY CATHERINE, it said.

  ‘I would like the tribunal to know about your National Day of Shame,’ said Aquinas.

  ‘My husband’s idea, really. We called for everyone involved with thermonuclear weapons – technicians, politicians, professors – to stay out of work for a day. We said that the next morning they should bring in notes from their mothers.’

  ‘Notes saying. . .’

  ‘ “My child was absent yesterday because he was sick of being up to his neck in excrement.” ’

  ‘Nuclear weapons make you mad, don’t they, Mother Mary?’

  ‘Mad as a hornet.’<
br />
  ‘No further questions.’

  In the gallery a second banner was unfurled: MOTHER MARY CATHERINE FOR SAINTHOOD.

  ‘Well, men, what do you think?’ said Brat.

  ‘She said nothing we haven’t all heard before,’ Sparrow replied.

  ‘Except the stuff about your being elected President,’ said Wengernook.

  ‘There’s no telling what a Christian will be called upon to do,’ said Sparrow.

  ‘Congratulations,’ said George.

  ‘You would have gotten my vote,’ said Brat.

  Eyes flashing, mouth set in a formidable smile, Bonenfant charged up to the stand.

  ‘He’d better go easy,’ said Wengernook. ‘Everybody likes a nun.’

  ‘She’s a priest,’ said Randstable.

  ‘She’s heading for hell,’ said Sparrow.

  ‘She’s unadmitted,’ said Overwhite. ‘She’s in hell.’

  The chief counsel began, ‘Miss Catherine – these various antics of yours, how do you suppose they went over in Moscow?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘The old men in the Kremlin must have been delighted knowing that an American Vice President was calling for SWAP talks and so on.’

  ‘I’ve never visited the Kremlin.’

  ‘Evidently not. Now, when you first proposed the Soviet Day of Shame, was the plan to hold it simultaneously with the American one? Or did you perhaps neglect to call for a Soviet Day of Shame?’

  ‘My goal was to educate the American public concerning the absurdities of—’

  ‘Just answer the question, please. Did you or did you not call for a Soviet Day of Shame?’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘He’s got her on the run,’ said Brat cheerfully.

  ‘Nuns don’t hold up over the long haul,’ said Wengernook.

  ‘She’s a priest,’ said Randstable.

  ‘You realize, I am sure,’ said Bonenfant, ‘that these pacifist ideas of yours go against the Catholic Church’s doctrine of just war.’ He illustrated the word pacifist with a smirk. ‘Don’t you think perhaps you should have been born a Quaker?’

  ‘I think perhaps I should have been born.’

  ‘Did you really resign your office, Miss Catherine, or did President Sparrow ask you to step down?’