The Absolutist

by John Boyne

  “Sometimes.”

  “And yet now you won’t fight at all.”

  He smiles then, very slowly, his eyes focusing so tightly on mine that eventually I am forced to look away. “And is that what you’re here for really?” he asks me. “Was this all planned so you’d be thrown in here, too, and you might persuade me to change my mind?”

  “I’ve told you exactly why I’m here,” I say, annoyed by the charge. “I’m here because that damn fool Marshall had it coming to him.”

  “I don’t know him, do I?” he asks, frowning.

  “No, he’s new. But look, let’s not worry about him. Clayton’s gone mad, anyone can see it. I think we can fight this thing if we try. We just need to talk to Wells and Harding and—”

  “Fight what thing, Tristan?” he asks me.

  “Well, this, of course,” I say in amazement, looking around me as if any further explanation were unnecessary. “What do you think I’m talking about? Your sentence.”

  He shakes his head and I notice that he is trembling slightly. So he is afraid, after all. He does want to live. He says nothing for a long time and neither do I; I don’t want to rush him. I want to wait for him to decide on his own.

  “I’ve had the old man in here a few times, of course,” he says finally, extending his hands out before him, turning them over to examine his palms as if he might find answers there. “Trying to get me to change my mind. Trying to get me to lift my gun again. It’s no good, I tell him, but he won’t wear it. I think he sees it as a slight on his own character.”

  “He probably doesn’t want to have to report to General Fielding that one of his own men refuses to fight.”

  “And an Aldershot man at that,” he replies, his head cocked a little to the side as he smiles at me. “The disgrace of it!”

  “Things have changed. Milton’s dead, for one thing,” I say, wondering whether this particular piece of intelligence has made its way here. “So it doesn’t matter any more. You can’t bring him to justice, no matter what you do. You can give all this up.”

  He thinks about this for a moment, considers and dismisses it. “I’m sorry to hear he’s dead,” he tells me. “But it doesn’t change anything. It’s the principle that matters.”

  “It’s not, actually,” I insist. “It’s life and death that matters.”

  “Then perhaps I can take it up with Milton in a couple of hours’ time.”

  “Don’t, Will, please,” I say, horrified by his words.

  “I hope there aren’t any wars in heaven.”

  “Will—”

  “Can you imagine it, Tristan? Getting away from all this only to find that the war between God and Lucifer continues up above? I’d have a difficult time refusing Him, wouldn’t I?”

  “Look, stop being so bloody flippant. If you offer to get straight back into the thick of it then the old man will let you off. He needs every soldier he can get his hands on. Yes, you might be prosecuted when the war is over but at least you won’t be dead.”

  “I can’t do it, Tris,” he says. “I’d like to, I really would. I don’t want to die. I’m nineteen years old, I have my whole life in front of me.”

  “Then don’t die,” I say, approaching him. “Don’t die, Will.”

  He frowns a little and looks up at me. “Don’t you have any principles, Tristan?” he asks me. “Principles for which you would lay down your life, I mean.”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “People, perhaps. But not principles. What good are they?”

  “This is why things have always been complicated between us, you see,” he tells me. “We’re very different people, that’s the truth of it. You really don’t believe in anything at all, do you?

  While I—”

  “Don’t, Will,” I say, looking away.

  “I don’t say it to hurt you, Tristan, really I don’t. I just mean that you run away from things, that’s all. From your family, for example. From friendships. From right and wrong. But I don’t, you see. I can’t. I’d like to be more like you, of course. If I was, there’d have been more chance that I would have got out of this bloody mess with my life.”

  I can feel the anger bubbling inside me. Even now, even at this moment, he chooses to patronize me. It makes me wonder why I ever felt a thing for him.

  “Please,” I say, trying not to let my growing resentment overwhelm me, “just tell me what you want me to do to put this madness to an end. I’ll do whatever you say.”

  “I want you to go to Sergeant Clayton and tell him that Milton killed that boy in cold blood. Do that if you really mean what you say. And while you’re at it, tell him what you know about Wolf’s murder.”

  “But Milton is dead,” I insist. “And so is Wolf. What’s to be gained by such a thing?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t.”

  “But it wouldn’t mean anything,” I tell him. “Nothing would be gained.”

  “Do you see the irony at all, Tristan?”

  I stare at him and shake my head. He seems determined not to speak again until I do. “What irony?” I ask eventually, the words tumbling out in a hurried heap.

  “That I am to be shot as a coward while you get to live as one.”

  I stand up and walk away from him, remove myself to the furthest corner of the room. “You’re just being cruel now,” I say quietly.

  “Am I? I thought I was being honest.”

  “Why must you always be so cruel?” I ask.

  “It’s something I’ve learned here,” he tells me. “You’ve learned it, too. You just don’t realize it.”

  “But they’re trying to kill us, too,” I protest, standing up again now. “You’ve been in the trenches. You’ve felt the bullets flying past your head. You’ve been out in no-man’s-land, crawling around among the dead bodies.”

  “Yes, and we do the same to them, so doesn’t that make us just as bad as them? I mean it, Tristan. I’m interested to know. Give me an answer. Help me to understand.”

  “You’re impossible to talk to,” I say.

  “Why?” he asks, sounding genuinely bewildered.

  “Because you will believe whatever it is you choose to believe and you won’t hear any argument about it one way or the other. You have all these opinions which help define you as a better man than anyone else, but where are your high-minded principles when it comes to the rest of your life?”

  “I don’t think I’m better than you, Tristan,” he says, shaking his head. He looks at his watch and swallows nervously. “It’s getting closer.”

  “We can put a stop to it.”

  “What did you mean by ‘the rest of my life’?” he asks, looking across, his brow furrowed with irritation.

  “You don’t need me to spell it out for you,” I say.

  “I do, actually,” he says. “Tell me. If you have something to say, just say it. You may not get many more chances, so spit it out, for pity’s sake.”

  “Right from the start,” I say, not hesitating for a moment. “Right from the start, you’ve behaved badly towards me.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Let’s not pretend otherwise,” I say. “We became friends back there in Aldershot, you and I. I thought we were friends, anyway.”

  “But we are friends, Tristan,” he insists. “Why would you think otherwise?”

  “I thought perhaps we were more than that.”

  “And whatever gave you that impression?”

  “Do you really need me to tell you?” I ask him.

  “Tristan,” he says with a sigh, running his hand across his eyes. “Please don’t bring up that business again. Not now.”

  “You speak of it as if it meant nothing.”

  “But it did mean nothing, Tristan,” he insists. “My God. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Are you so emotionally crippled that you can’t understand what comfort is when it stands in front of you? That’s all it was.”

  “ ‘Comfort’?” I ask, astonished.

  “You
must keep coming back to this, mustn’t you?” he says, growing angry now. “You’re worse than a woman, do you know that?”

  “Fuck off,” I say, although my heart isn’t fully in it.

  “It’s true. And if you continue to talk about this, I’m going to call Corporal Moody and ask him to lock you up somewhere else.”

  “Corporal Moody is dead, Will,” I tell him. “And if you had been part of what was going on around here and not hiding away in this useful little cubbyhole of yours, you’d know that.”

  This makes him hesitate. He looks away and bites his top lip.

  “When did this happen?”

  “A few nights ago,” I say, brushing it away as if it means nothing; this is how immune I have become to the fact of death. “Look, it doesn’t matter. He’s dead. Williams and Attling are dead. Milton’s dead. Everyone’s dead.”

  “Everyone’s not dead, Tristan. Don’t exaggerate. You’re alive, I’m alive.”

  “But you’re going to be shot,” I say, almost laughing at the absurdity of it. “That’s what happens to feather men.”

  “I’m not a feather man,” he insists, standing up now and looking angry. “Feather men are cowards. I’m not a coward, I’m principled, that’s all. There’s a difference.”

  “Yes, so you seem to believe. Do you know, if it had been a one-off, perhaps then I could have understood it. Perhaps I could have thought, Well, it was the end of our training. We were worried, we were terrified of what lay ahead. You sought comfort where you could find it. But it was you, Will. It was you who led me the second time. And then you looked at me as if I was something that repulsed you.”

  “Sometimes you do repulse me,” he says casually. “When I think of what you are. And I realize that that’s what you think I am, too, and I know differently. You’re right. At such moments you do repulse me. Perhaps that’s your life. Perhaps that’s the way your destiny is to be shaped, but not mine. It’s not what I wanted. It never was.”

  “Only because you’re a liar,” I say.

  “I think you had better take care what you say,” he says, narrowing his eyes. “We are friends, Tristan; I like to think we are, anyway. And I shouldn’t like us to fall out. Not now. Not at this late stage.”

  “I don’t want that either,” I insist. “You’re the best friend I have, Will. You’re … Well, look”—I have to say it; our time is running out—“does it matter at all that I love you?”

  “For God’s sake, man,” he hisses, a thread of spittle falling from his mouth on to the ground. “Don’t speak like that. What if we were to be overheard?”

  “I don’t care,” I say, coming over and standing before him. “Listen to me, just this once. When this is all over—”

  “Get away from me,” he insists, shoving me aside, with more force than he might have intended, for I stumble hard on to the ground and fall on my shoulder, a stab of pain shooting through my body.

  He looks at me and bites his lip as if he regrets that for a moment but then his expression reverts to one of coldness.

  “Look, why can’t you just stay away from me?” he asks. “Why must you always be around? Why must you be always in my ear? To hear you say what you’ve just said, well, it turns my stomach, that’s all. I don’t love you, Tristan. I don’t even like you very much any more. You were there, that’s all it was. You were there. I feel nothing for you, except contempt. Why are you even in here? Did you orchestrate this? Did you fall over Marshall so that you would be dragged in here with me?”

  He steps forward and slaps me on the face; not a punch, as he might deliver to another man, but a slap. My head turns with the force of it but I’m stunned into silence and inaction.

  “Are you expecting something from me, Tristan? Is that what it is?” he continues. “Because you’re not going to get it. Understand that, can’t you?”

  And now he slaps me again and I let him.

  “Do you think I would have anything to do with a man like you?”

  Right in front of me now, he slaps me for a third time; my right cheek is inflamed with pain but still I cannot hit him back.

  “My God! When I think of what we’ve done together it makes me sick. Do you realize that? It makes me want to retch.”

  A fourth slap and now I rush at him, seeing red, ready to pounce, ready to punch him in my anger, but he misinterprets my actions and pushes me away and I fall again on my bruised shoulder and this time it hurts like hell.

  “Get off me!” he shouts. “Jesus Christ, Tristan, I’m about to die and you want one last go at me for old times’ sake, is that it? What kind of man are you, anyway?”

  “That’s not what I—” I begin, stumbling back to my feet.

  “Fucking hell!” he snaps, leaning over me. “I’m about to die! Can’t you just leave me alone for five fucking minutes to get my thoughts together?”

  “Please, Will,” I say, tears of anger spilling down my cheeks as I reach for him. “I’m sorry, all right? We’re friends—”

  “We’re not fucking friends!” he shouts. “We were never friends! Can’t you understand that, you fool?” He marches to the door and bangs on it repeatedly, shouting through the bars. “Get him out of here!” he yells, pushing me against the door. “I want a few minutes’ peace before I die.”

  “Will,” I say, but he shakes his head; still, he pulls me to him one last time.

  “Listen to me,” he says, whispering in my ear. “And remember what I tell you: I am not like you. I wish to fuck I had never met you. Wolf told me all about you, told me what you were, and I stayed your friend out of pity. Because I knew that no one else would be your friend. I despise you, Tristan.”

  I feel dizzy. I never would have believed that he could be so cruel but he seems to mean every word that he is saying. I feel tears coming to my eyes. I open my mouth but find I have no words for him. I want to lie on my bunk, my face to the wall, pretending that he doesn’t exist, but at that moment I hear footsteps running down towards our door, a key in the lock. It opens. And two men step inside and stare at us both.

  I stand in the courtyard for what seems an age, feeling as if my head will explode. There’s a fireball of fury within me. I hate him. All he made me do, all he said to me. The way he led me on. I feel a searing pain in my shoulder from where he knocked me off my feet twice, and my face is tender from his slaps. I look back towards where he remains locked up, with Corporal Harding and the chaplain. I want to go back down there, grab him by the neck and bang his head on the stone floor until his brains have spilled out. I want him to fucking die. I love him but I want him to fucking die. I can’t live in a world where he exists.

  “I need one more!” shouts Sergeant Clayton to Wells.

  But Wells shakes his head. “Not me,” he says.

  I look in front of me at the firing squad already assembled—the sun has risen, it’s six o’clock—five men in a row, a gap for the sixth.

  “You know I can’t, sir,” says Wells. “It has to be an enlisted man.”

  “Then I’ll do it myself!” roars Clayton.

  “You can’t, sir,” insists Wells. “It’s against regulations. Just wait. I’ll go back to the trench and find someone. One of the new boys, someone who doesn’t know him.”

  I don’t recognize the five boys lined up to shoot Will. They look terrified. They look clean. Two of them are visibly shaking.

  I march over to them and Clayton looks at me in surprise. “You need a sixth man?” I ask.

  “No, Sadler,” says Wells, staring at me in astonishment. “Not you. Go back to the trenches. Find Morton. Send him to me, all right?”

  “You need a sixth man?” I repeat.

  “I said not you, Sadler.”

  “And I said I’ll do it,” I say, picking up the sixth rifle as the hatred courses through my veins. I twist my jaw to relieve some of the pain in my cheek but it feels like he’s slapping me again every time I do so.

  “There we are, then,” snaps Sergeant Clayton
, giving the signal to the guardsman to open the door. “Bring him up. It’s time.”

  “Sadler, think about this, for God’s sake,” hisses Wells, grabbing me by the arm, but I brush him off and take my place in line. I want his fucking head on a plate. I check the round, lock it in place. I stand between two boys, ignoring them both.

  “Corporal Wells, get out of the way,” snaps Sergeant Clayton, and then I see him, I see Will being led up the steps by the guardsman, a black mask placed over his eyes, a piece of red cloth pinned above his heart. He walks hesitantly until he is standing at the stoop. I stare at him, I remember everything, I hear his words in my ears and it is all I can do not to rush at him and tear him limb from limb.

  Sergeant Clayton gives the order for us to stand to attention, and we do, six men side by side, rifles raised.

  What are you doing? I think, a voice of reason in my head, a voice pleading with me to think about what I’m doing. A voice I choose to ignore.

  “Take aim!” cries Clayton, and in that moment, Will, brave to the last, whips his blindfold away, wanting to face his killers as they gun him down. His expression is one of fear but strength, too, resilience. And then he notices me standing in line and his expression changes. He is shocked. He stares. His face collapses.

  “Tristan,” he says, his last word.

  And the command comes, and the index finger of my right hand presses on the trigger and, in a heartbeat, six guns have discharged, mine as quickly as anyone’s, and my friend lies on the ground, unmoving, his war over.

  Mine about to begin.

  THE SHAME OF

  MY ACTIONS

  London, October 1979

  I SAW HER ONCE AGAIN.

  It was almost sixty years later, the autumn of 1979. Mrs. Thatcher had come to power a few months earlier and there was a sense that civilization as we knew it was about to come to an end. My eighty-first birthday had been reported in the newspapers and I received a letter from a literary society, informing me that I was to be presented with a misshapen piece of bronze cast inside a block of wood with a silver pen emerging from its crown but it was mine only if I was willing to don a tuxedo, attend a dinner, deliver a short speech and an even shorter reading, and generally make myself available for a day or two to the press.