Super-State

by By Brian Aldiss

  We have everything precious to lose by going to war against a predominantly Muslim country in the East. If war is declared, it is proof once more that mankind is mad.

  This concludes our first message on this subject. Watch out for more>

  The second message from the new group was transmitted the next day, again in the middle of commercials.

  ‘Pining for the days of cod? We have a GM groper that tastes Just Like The Real Thing. Enjoy it only at Exotika Eateria on 28th Street.’

 
  Yet we have constant reminders of the primitive being in us. Think of the paintings of Christ nailed to the cross. Such paintings fill our art galleries. Think of the number of people who need some kind of mental therapy. Think of the innumerable cases of psychosomatic illnesses or suicides among the young.

  Although we like to believe that society is a cause of our internal woes, it is our internal woes that have created our societies. As panacea, we cling to antique systems which are manifestly mistaken—superstition, wizardry, astrology, incantation, drugs.

  We pervert our technology to manufacture barbarous weapons. Even if and when unused, the weapons poison our existence. They must be paid for in more than money.

  In attempts to govern our lives, we look to the past, perhaps to what our parents did or failed to do, instead of looking forward to see what consequences our actions might have upon the future.

  Our growing understanding of the workings of the brain reveals its faulty construction. There is no way in which we can ever become humanely rational. No way in which we can become content. No way in which we can escape our ruinous inheritance.

  On the contrary, the processes of insanity are on the increase. More and more of our populations move into overcrowded cities, away from nature. They thereby starve themselves of the intimations of nature, weather and the seasons. They must rely instead on fleeting relationships, mainly sexual, mainly conducted in closed rooms, with other exiles as gravely alienated as themselves. The Space Age has become the Chamber Age. Imagination and romance prevail in a mental prison that prevents reality from entering. We ourselves have built that prison. This is why we cannot escape from it.

  We see war as an escape. It merely extends the prison walls. >

  * * * *

  The apartment in Frankfurt was comfortable, even luxurious. The rear windows of its bedrooms looked out over a pleasant square, where, at this relaxed time of day, couples strolled among the trees and formal flower beds. No cars or Slo-Mos were permitted during the hours of daylight on the streets surrounding the square. The constant drone of traffic on the main arteries of the city seemed merely to emphasise the peace of Friesengasse Square.

  Amygdella Haze came slowly from the Friesengasse Brasserie, where she had been enjoying an amaretto ice cream with a woman friend, the famous Yakaphrenia Lady. She stood for a moment, gazing at a bird she could not identify among the acacia trees. The acacias had almost ceased flowering. Their pleasant scents would no longer filter in through her open windows — or at least, not for another season . . .

  She walked to the entrance of her apartment block, decorated with the marzipan effect of the late nineteenth century, keyed in her code, 0909, entered, and took the elevator to the second floor.

  Once in her apartment, she looked about complacently at the paintings which covered the walls.

  Her housekeeper immediately appeared. Amygdella gave her a smile and asked for coffee. She let her gauzy scarf float to the floor, before going to the bedroom to attend to her face in a mirror. She applied a pale pink lipstick to her lips. On the wall nearby were two little framed Tiepolo etchings from his Capricci in first-state proof. They got a glance of approval from her.

  She put a couple of ropes of bead necklaces about her neck, and went over to her ambient, rigged with fresh flowers to resemble a shrine. She switched on, and was soon in communication with her friendly guru in Allahabad.

  In his delightful variant of the German language, Ben Krishnamurti pushed his whiskery face close to the screen and announced to Amygdella that Spite was dead. All spite had died that morning in his breast. He had risen and had done his holy exercises. He was taking a shower and chanting when the light dawned upon him. He was taken up by the light and the water was all about him.

  Then he recognised that the water was really the world’s spite. He had drunk it down and returned to Earth. Yet he remained elevated because he had overcome a great ill — with the help of the gods. It was an immense happiness to him and to all men. And also to all women, of course.

  Exclaiming that it all sounded so beautiful, Amygdella asked if this meant there would be no war.

  ‘No, the war will have to come, Lady Amy, but spite is a different thing. You must see these matters as separate.’

  Versed though she was in mysticism, she remained slightly puzzled.

  Krishnamurti explained to her that spite was merely a human trait, attacking people one by one, and so devouring them and all they loved. Whereas war came from the gods, both to enliven and destroy, and had to be endured. What he called ‘the political business’ meant nothing: it was merely exercised by puny men.

  ‘Thank you for your explanation, Beniji. I shall benefit from it.’

  She switched off and sat in contemplative thought. There was a difficulty: her current lover, Randolph Haven, was a minor politician, and currently of the war party.

  But she remained in an elevated frame of mind. She could always give up Randolph. She could not give up the Wisdom of the East.

  * * * *

  She was still in her elevated state when the exterior doorfone buzzed. Before she could float over to answer it, it buzzed again. She knew it was her son Bertie. When she heard the elevator, she went to the apartment door and opened it. She flung her arms round Bertie’s neck. Having kissed his mother on both cheeks, he threw himself on her sofa, where he promptly lit a marihale. Without being asked, Amygdella went to the drinks bar and poured two glasses of white wine.

  As she handed him one of the glasses, she asked him how university was going.

  Without answering the question, Bertie said, ‘Ma, I need to go to England to inspect an archaeological site.’

  ‘Site or spite? No more spite in the world, Bertie, my dear.’

  She executed a twirl, allowing her full skirts to flare out.

  ‘What are you on, Ma? I need some cash. I must go to England to inspect this archaeological thing-me-bob.’

  ‘What a horrid phrase that is.”Thing-me-bob”. Where did you get it from? Where did you contract it?’ She laughed. ‘You youngsters!’

  Bertie regarded his mother; it was a kindly inspection, although not entirely unmixed with exasperation. Amygdella was forty-two, quite petite, adding to her stature with a massive fuzz of shining brown hair, into which little fake pearls had been woven. She was beautiful, no doubt of that, with her large violet eyes, pretty little mouth and demure chin. And her manner — whether natural or cultivated — was always slightly frivolous in a way that attracted men. That was the problem, of course: that was what had eventually caused Harry Haze to give up and disappear into the East, always to his son’s regret.

  Catching sight of Ben Krishnamurti’s photograph by the ambient, he said, ‘You’re not still talking to that old fraud in Allahabad, Ma?’

  ‘You never understood faith. Come to that, you’ve never been to Allahabad, my dear.’

  ‘Religion and science are not easy bedfellows.’ He reverted to lecturing mode. ‘Science requires proof. Religion runs against proof. Why people in this century have not become more scientific I will never understand. I suppose you are still practising amaroli, aren’t you? Your Beniji taught you that repulsive little
trick, didn’t he?’

  Amaroli was one of the features of her life which had made Amygdella famous.

  ‘Ah, but that’s not faith, darling. That’s science. Urine contains the hormone melatonin. What else do you think keeps me looking so young?’

  ‘Ugh! I prefer amaretto.’

  ‘Now, Bertie dear, don’t tease me. That’s not the way to coax money out of your poor mother. Surely you know that by now?’

  ‘Sorry, Ma, I didn’t mean to tease. I just worry that you are going dotty. I really do need that dough . . . They’re digging at Castle Acre, Ma. It’s terribly important.’

  ‘Is that anywhere near where this young lady, Bettina, whom you fancy, lives? With whom you danced at the wedding?’

  ‘As it happens, it’s not too far away. Please, Ma.’

  ‘Oh, young love . . . Have you been in touch with her since then?’

  Bertie pulled a face. ‘Maybe.’

  Smiling, she changed the subject. ‘What about your card?’

  ‘It’s run out.’

  ‘Do the English have univs yet, I wonder?’

  ‘Three hundred would do nicely, Ma.’

  She sighed the sigh of martyrdom. ‘Just don’t tell Randy.’

  She went to fetch her purse.

  * * * *

  Purses in the Bargane household were less well filled than Amygdella’s. Wayne Bargane, Master of Banquets at the Victor-Esme wedding celebrations, carefully returned his hired ceremonial clothes and resumed his artisan gear. He received the fee for his work before being driven to the airport. His was a long flight home.

  The Bargane family had accepted a subsidy offered by the Department of Social Economics of the EU government, and removed themselves to the eastern lands. They had been settled on a run-down farm in Romania, on the fringes of a town with the not particularly promising name of Slobozia.

  The unspoken hope was that something of Western culture might rub off on ruder relations in the Black Sea region, the very margin of the super-state.

  Wayne’s old car was awaiting him in the car park of Bucharest airport. He drove slowly back to the new home in Slobozia. Sunlight flickered through the long avenues of poplars lining the dusty road that ran by the River Ialometa. Wayne was a professional, used to travelling all round the super-state in pursuit of his job. Yet the contrasts between the wealthy West and the impoverished East could not be ignored. He saw more bullock carts than cars on his route.

  When he reached the Bargane vineyards, Wayne stopped the car and got out. The day was intolerably hot. Global warming was afflicting everything. He shielded his eyes to scan the fields. In the distance, his old mother, Marie Bargane, was supervising the android who did most of the work. He was currently hosing the rows of vines. Marie never trusted the mechanical. Wayne could not help smiling.

  His mother saw him, waved, and came slowly towards him, trudging between the rows. She wore an old-fashioned sun-bonnet. He thought, not without affection, that she might have belonged to any of the previous centuries. From being an impoverished townie in Toulouse, she had become an impoverished peasant in Slobozia. Wayne earned more for superintending one wedding ceremony than the farm could make in a year.

  Marie climbed into the car and mopped her face with a handkerchief. ‘Alfie takes such a lot of looking after,’ she said.

  The android’s manufacturing code was ALF21. Hence Alfie.

  ‘He’d get on better if you left him alone, Mother. He’s ideal for watering, surely.’

  ‘He tends to waste water. He has no feel for viniculture, Wayne. Of course not. He doesn’t drink the product.’

  At the house, they went into the front room, the one room with air-conditioning. The air-conditioner, having been bought second-hand, worked with a grinding noise, interspersed with whimpers. On the drab orange walls of the room hung one incongruous painting, a reproduction of a late Morsberger, bursting with life.

  Several members of the family were in the room, resting on old sofas and half watching the ambient. It was only the old mongrel, Oddball, who jumped up in greeting, to fuss round Wayne’s legs. He patted the dog absent-mindedly.

  Marie’s crippled husband, Jean-Paul, was slumped on the black horsehair sofa as usual, face set in bitter lines. Also present were Wayne’s older sister, Claudine, and her eleven-year-old daughter, Maddie (father unknown), and Wayne’s two brothers, Cassidy and Jacques, playing a simple game of cards. Also, in a corner, aloof, apart, sat Wayne’s uncle, David Bargane. David of the drooping moustache was always apart, almost silent, the one religious member of the family. His mere presence radiated disapproval of almost everything.

  ‘Here comes the family star,’ said Cassidy by way of welcome. He got up and began clapping Wayne slowly on the shoulder. ‘Friend of our beloved President and all that. Did you ask him about our allowances, Wayne?’

  Wayne smiled. ‘It wasn’t a political occasion.’

  ‘He’s just launched another regulation,’ said Jacques, putting down his hand of cards to scratch his jaw. ‘You’ll never believe this one.’ He assumed a pompous voice. ‘The age of sexual consent has been lowered to eleven. “Children mature earlier these days.” But in order to curb the growth of population, a law is being introduced making sexual intercourse where one or both partners are over the age of fifty-five a chargeable offence.’

  Wayne burst out laughing. The others joined in, all except David. Oddball barked. Maddie was heard to say, ‘I’m eleven. I can copulate now, can’t I, Mummy?’

  David said, in a low voice that ensured they would all listen, ‘So this president reveals himself as being anti-Christ. He encourages sexual licence. He should be exterminated.’

  ‘Rubbish, David,’ said Wayne. ’It isn’t the president who makes up these rules and regulations. They originate from democratic committees in Brussels.’

  ‘He is the president, Wayne. You will hardly deny that. A fish stinks from the head.’

  ‘Mummy, who can I copulate with?’ asked Maddie. She jumped up and down. She was rather retarded.

  ‘Whom, you mean, dear,’ said Claudine.

  They all roared with laughter, all except David, while Claudine stroked her child’s head and advised her to be quiet.

  David had a sister, almost as stern as he, dark of complexion, dark of thought, dark of hair — though the hair was now shot through with grey strands which wormed their way through the black curls like serpents through burned-out undergrowth. This was Wayne’s Aunt Delphine. She disapproved of Wayne’s worldly profession.

  Without greeting him, she entered from the kitchen to announce that the evening meal was served.

  ‘Thank you, Delphine, dear,’ said Marie. She was scared of her grim sister. ‘I will just switch Alfie off.’

  She went to the door, zapper in hand. The android was working close to the house. He looked round when she called to him, head swivelling on sturdy neck.

  She zapped him. He froze. Alfie would stand where he was till morning.

  The Bargane family rose without enthusiasm to the call to supper. They sat on benches on either side of the table at the back of the room. The women brought in bread, plates, saucepans. Delphine was not a wonderful cook. Moreover, the Barganes had entered, with initial enthusiasm, into a contract with a government department, and subscribed to the societal algebraic coding scheme, or SAC, designed to banish poverty within the sphere of the EU and its federated states.

  To subscribe, families had to educate their children at state schools, give up smoking tobacco and gambling (except at horse races), drink only a small measure of alcohol a week, and wash regularly. In return, bathrooms were installed, a minimum wage was paid in univs, and — for those who laboured in the fields, in accord with the common agricultural policy—an android labourer was supplied to help with the heavy work.

  Once the scheme was in place and operating, drawbacks became apparent. The agricultural androids were heavyweight machines which needed much upkeep. They gave off unpleasant
fumes and quite frequently fell over on rough ground. Also, not every family was able to give up long-standing habits regarding alcohol and tobacco. There were, naturally enough, fines for breaking regulations; but local supervisors could be bribed. The supervisors of the East were proving especially susceptible.

  A later development of SAC policy was also unpopular. It aimed to counter the pernicious influence of pop culture and sensational videos, and to downgrade the youthful idolising of football players. To improve the cultural standing of the most poverty-stricken, a book was issued free of charge every quarter-year to all families below a certain level of income. The hope was that literacy would be encouraged in a painless way.