by Jesse Ball
It never occurred to him to wonder how there could be so many people, so many shifting groups that he only saw once in so small a village. No matter how many such scenes played out, he didn’t wonder—for Henry had become a very particular sort of person. He had been groomed to be a person who did not ask questions. He had not been told to be that way, but all the same he had been led to it, and now that he was there, he felt a great comfort.
Yes, those are the sorts of things that would happen. Not those things, exactly, of course, but things like them. Many things just like them.
—HOW IS IT that you know when you have accomplished a conversation with another person in a good manner? asked the examiner slowly. Or, I should say, how do you think other people judge these conversations?
They were eating supper, pea soup with thick, crusty brown bread. The claimant had a piece of bread torn in half on his plate. The brown bread tore well and it felt good to do it.
—I think it is a success if we can both go away feeling that we were right to begin with. That we were right about how it would go when we met and talked, and that it went the way it was supposed to go.
—Who determines how it is supposed to go?
—No one does. But, if it doesn’t go that way, everyone can see it.
—And would that embarrass you?
—No, I don’t think so.
The claimant thought for a minute.
—I don’t think about other people judging it.
—Why?
—Because, you said, you said once, that it is a failure to think of people as being separate from the village. The people are the village. If I speak to them about something, I’m just trying to preserve the sense that already exists in the village. I do that by having a sensible conversation, such a conversation as could happen in the village. That is the whole of it.
The examiner clapped her hands together.
—One more thing, she asked. I want to do an exercise. I want you to tell me what it is like to walk down into the town. Could you do that for me? Imagine the most beautiful day imaginable, a day such as you have longed for. You wake up, and go downstairs. You leave the house. You go out into the street. Take it from there.
—I GO OUT into the street, said the claimant. The gate shuts behind me. I’m surrounded by houses that I know, good houses, all the right dimensions, all painted the way that I like. The road goes by, and I go along it, I find the fence and I walk beside the fence. We are on a hill and at the bottom of the hill, there are other sorts of buildings. I think about the things that I will see, and then I see them. There are shops, and people in the shops. Often the same people are in the shops, the same people buying things, the same people selling things, the same things being bought and sold. There is a shop where clothes are mended, a cafe where an old man sits by himself in front of a chessboard, and another old man is sitting down to join him. He doesn’t sit down. He stands there next to it. They both look at the board. There are benches farther on, and the people who sit in the benches vary by the hour. When I am there, it is usually early or it is late. When it is early, there are people there who I know, people I recognize from one set of places. When it is late, there are people I recognize from another set of places. The people go elsewhere and are replaced. Then, we come to a little square, and…
—Very good, said the examiner. That is enough for now. Let’s finish our supper.
She raised her glass.
—This is how people toast, she said.
THEN, A DAY CAME when the examiner was not there. He looked about the house for her, but he could not find her. On the kitchen table, there was a note. The note said:
++
Gone for two days. You will be perfectly all right until I return.
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Henry fell into a small confusion, but passed over it lightly. It should be no concern for her to go away. He was prepared for that. In fact, he spent most of his days now on solitary tasks. There was food in the house, and if he wanted to, he could go out to eat. If he wanted company, he could find it outside. He could visit the home of one of his acquaintances, for instance.
At that thought, though, he did become concerned. He was not sure which of them he would go to, and what it would mean to do so. He had better not go visiting.
Although, he supposed, it didn’t much matter whether it was one or another home that he visited. He could imagine what the visits would consist of, and it wasn’t like anything at all would come of them. He didn’t need to be afraid of consequences. Whatever he chose would be fine. Even if the examiner were here, he might not tell her where he was going. So, why should it matter?
Slowly, slowly, in this new place, a measure was taking its course. He was stiffening into a new resolve—a stolid manner was gripping him. He was not blunted so much as immobile.
Many things will be said to me, and I will say many things. Such was his thought in the morning, and in the night he might think, many things were said to me, and I said many things. But what those things were—they were unreachable. They were like mouths yawning open a brief second and then closing, yawning in succession.
If he had once thought life was different from this—then he no longer suspected it might ever have been the case.
AND THE NEXT TIME she went away, it was for a week, and then, every so often, she would simply be gone with no notice, and he became comfortable even with that.
It came to pass that the exercises the examiner presented him with ceased to be rehearsed. She would not tell him ahead of time how they would go. He would simply travel out into the village and things would happen and he would respond. Sometimes things would go well, and sometimes they would go badly, but either way, it was always all right. He would talk about how they had gone with the examiner. Or sometimes, he would not. Sometimes it was okay for things merely to have happened. As the examiner said, events are just events. Nothing is any more important than anything else.
Once, he got into a heated argument with a loud woman who had knocked him with her umbrella. By the end of the argument, though, his good nature had won through, and they were both apologizing. They were standing in the rain, both drenched now, and apologizing for their behavior.
Once, he left his coat on a bench and the next day he saw someone else wearing it!
Once, he was asked to give a speech at a small gathering, and when he arrived—they had forgotten he had been invited at all.
These and other things he learned he could bear. His nature became seamless with that of the village. Others began to comment on it—what an example he now was setting. They said these things just loud enough for him to hear.
THE EXAMINER was sitting in a room that was in the house, but that the claimant had never seen. It was on the other side of a wall, and he had never thought to look at the house from the outside to see that the windows matched up with the rooms. She was sitting at a desk, like the desk in the study, and she was writing something down in a report. This is what she wrote:
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Claimant has reached his ease. Claimant is at ease, and there is little more to do. I believe that he was once an extraordinary candidate and must have been extremely high functioning when he came to us. My guess is that several years have passed since then. The person that came into my care has never had any potential for a real existence. He is now capable of a mediated and comfortable life, albeit with no responsibilities, and with constant maintenance. I recommend that he receive no real duties at all.
Although it is not knowable, as per the regulations of the process, I estimate that the claimant has been reprocessed a minimum of eight times. If true, that is lamentable, and is well beyond what I believe should be permitted.
As for the claimant, it is necessary he be under constant supervision. For that task, I recommend examiner 2387. She is connected with the case already, and can be reintegrated without trouble. Indeed, there is every reason to think he will look forward to her company.
At or before
the year’s end, then, I will conclude this case, and leave village E6.
I look forward to the group analysis of this case.
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TIME PASSED. After some number of days, one particular day arrived, and in the midst of that day, it was midday. The sun was shining so brightly overhead it seemed that every blade of grass could be made out, each from the others. It was a sort of harmony—nothing could be hidden, nothing at all beneath the sky.
Up and down the streets of the village, people went, and where they went it was about their meager business. There was just enough business for them to do. Just enough, and they were glad. The water flowed in the streams. The water stood still in the lake.
Here and there, a person would pause, and meet the eye of another person. There would be recognition and a glimmer of pleasure. Here and there, a person would enter a house, and shut the door, and the door would shut well. It would close with a dark and solid sound.
Likewise, windows were being thrown open. Other windows were closing. Here and there, a person was lying down for a nap, or pulling out a chair to sit at a table. The village was full of objects and things and they were all in use. It was a merry contraption, an intricate and many-faceted thing. From its center to its edges, it was complete in itself. If there were things it did not admit, and there must always be, then there is no room to speak of them now.
THE EXAMINER set a brass plate on the gate at the front of the house. On it was the name Henry Caul. Come and have a look, she told him.
She called him down out of the house, and he came hurrying, just as always. As always, he did, and when he did, they stood there and something marvelous happened. He was standing there and thinking about the brass plate. He was thinking about the name Henry Caul. He was thinking about the gate and the house and the street. And the examiner said out loud, out loud she said to him—
—Henry Caul is now your real name. Go for a walk and return to the house, and see how your name is here on this brass plate.
Then Henry went down the street, and every house that he passed had a person in the yard, and every person called out to him, good evening, Henry, or Mr. Caul, how nice to see you. He knew them all, every one. He knew them, and they knew him.
He went down one street and another. He looped back, and all the glimmering, shining faces fluttered together, all saying, Henry, Henry, Henry.
AND AS HE WALKED up the front steps of the house, he heard voices. Voices within his house! Two people were talking. The examiner was in the dining room with someone. Who could it be?
The examiner, his good friend, Dahlia, the person he had known and lived with for so long, she who had just put out the brass plate with his name, she who was so pleased with him, she came out into the hall and took his arm, and led him, not into the dining room, but into the parlor. They sat. He looked back in the direction of the dining room, but the examiner caught his eye and held it.
—I know that it has been difficult for you, Henry, to deal with the failure that happened last year, that happened in the last village. Indeed, it was not a failure. You did very well, but it was a failure of the village. Things with the woman called Hilda did not go well. She was very ill, and it hurt you to have to do the right thing. It hurt you because she was so persuasive, and because you were still vulnerable to her way of thinking. You are a loyal and good person, and you wanted it to be true that there was another kind of help you could have given her, but in the end your instincts won out and you found that there was only the one sort of help. You gave her that one sort of help. Yet even now you think about it and it troubles you. The world is a difficult place. It puts us in difficult situations. And now you have learned how to deal with all of these situations.
The examiner took a deep breath.
—I want to introduce you to someone, she said. This person has come to see us. She has come to live in this village for a while. Her name is Nancy. Nancy Throtten. You will see, see that there is a reason she came here.
—Nancy, said the examiner. Nancy, come in.
She leaned in, and whispered in the claimant’s ear.
—She remembers nothing about what happened, so don’t confuse her by talking about it. I think she will remember you a little, though, perhaps a little at first. So, be kind. If I remember right, you enjoyed spending time with her. Perhaps you will again?
There were footsteps in the hall, and then,
The young woman who came into the room was wearing a lovely periwinkle dress with thin straps, and bright yellow stockings. She was very pretty, so he thought, and when she saw him, she turned her head slightly to the left and smiled.
It was Hilda. Hilda!
—Dahlia has been telling me all about you, said Hilda-Nancy. I am looking forward to getting to know you.
The examiner left the room and the two young people sat together on a small couch.
—I feel, said Hilda-Nancy. I feel almost as though I had known you for a very long while. But, that’s silly.
She laughed, a bright wistful laugh.
—I have only just met you. We have all of that before us. Henry, she said. Henry, it is such a good name. I do love names. Don’t you?
—Nancy is a good name, too, said Henry. I think it fits you very well.
And as he stared at her, he felt in himself the past receding. He remembered, as clear as day, that he had lived in another place, and that he had known someone named Hilda, but that and other things like it seemed not to matter at all. Here was Nancy, here he lived in a place where certain things were. They were. That was enough. There was no need to think back to other things, or to let them rise up in the mind. His face assumed a studied posture—from without he appeared to be a person thinking deeply, but in fact, he was merely sitting there, calmly waiting for something to happen. Nancy’s face bore the same beatific expression. They were holding hands, and anyone who looked into the room would suppose that they were the two happiest people in the world.
On the other side of the wall, the examiner stood quietly, her eyes shut. She clapped her hands once, and then again, but so softly that no one could hear.
IT WAS A MAZE of hallways, a plain building with a maze of hallways. Most of the offices were empty. The doors were unmarked. No one waited before them.
Yet, on one door, there was printed a simple title. It was simple, but puzzling. It read:
INTERLOCUTOR
In the hall opposite, there was a bench. A man, a petitioner, had been sitting on the bench for the better part of an hour. His face and clothing were worn and thin and lined as though he hadn’t slept. His hand was shaking, and he was holding it in his other hand. Perhaps both were shaking. He stared mutely at the floor, and the light over his head flickered fitfully.
Finally, the door opened. A man with lustrous white hair, an old man, wearing a black suit, was looking out. He inclined his arm, and the petitioner stood, walked into the room, and shut the door.
As I sat in the office of the cure, he began to speak and explain to me what it was. I was there, and I had no choice but to continue, it seemed there was nothing but that, nothing else—and yet, it was being explained to me, almost without my permission, as a matter of course, this thing I did not understand: the cure for suicide. There had been so much progress in the world at large. So many things were solved, so said the interlocutor. My grandfather and his grandfather, even more so the grandfathers of those grandfathers, they could expect much less than I can, and so on and so on: the general life of man is improving at breakneck speed. But, the solutions all have had consequences, and the worst of these, it crops up again and again, he said, is isolation. In the modern world, we, all of us, are isolated. We might as well be furniture, he continued. That is, we cannot feel—we cannot reach out to others; again and again the problem comes up. There are those who cannot continue. Therefore, now that so many problems had been solved, this was the feeling in the republic, it fell to us to confront this final problem, this problem of problems. It
fell to us to find a solution, a cure for suicide, so said the interlocutor. His white hair was feathery and avian, but comforting, and seemed to declare that he was fit for the position he held, whatever position it was. Interlocutor. What was that? He had the same chair on both sides of his desk. The desk was basically a table. He could have sat on either side and it would be the same. I was here to speak to him and he to me. So he said. He said, the Process of Villages was created out of nothing. There was no such idea anywhere, and then suddenly it was a success. Suddenly, departments like this one were created in every city. This department was only a month old. He explained things rapidly, unendingly, and then suddenly would lapse into silence, watching me for unaccountable reasons. He said, the interlocutor, he himself, had just arrived in the city a week before, but he had worked in a different office, an office of the so-called Department of Failure, for many years. That’s what they call it, the Department of Failure, so he said. Regular folk. The real name is just its function: Process of Villages. It is the way the cure is administered. This is the beginning. When he said that, he made a curious gesture of his hand, as if to diminish the whole thing—to make it seem possible. A beginning is easy, so he seemed to say, and from there, it is all taken care of. I felt that he looked a bit like my grandfather, a man I had never liked. But, in him, all the elements of my grandfather that were deplorable and wicked were somehow lightened and improved. It was as though this thing, grandfather, had been revisited with greater care in his person, and now here he was, interlocutor, a person with whom one could speak. He said, for a very long time, for a thousand years and a thousand years before that, it was thought that suicide was wrong. It was believed that one shouldn’t kill oneself, that one didn’t have that right. This was because of a false idea—that the body was not one’s own property—that it belonged to someone other than you. Whether that was God or some other man, the reasoning was the same. But now we can see, there is no reason, really, not to end your life if you no longer want to live it. In fact, living it—provided you don’t want to—is irrational, so said the interlocutor. A man was sitting where you sit, right there, not three days ago, so said the interlocutor, and he said to me, I have never been the person I want to be. Even as a child, I was someone else. Every morning, for a lifetime—a lifetime!—I have woken up in this body that I feel should not be my own in a situation not my own. Why should I not end this life. My reply to him, said the interlocutor, was, if the idea is that you want out, why should it not be so, but consider this: Groebden, Emmanuel Groebden—one of the finest minds this world ever produced, he struggled with this problem. It was as if he spoke with you, with you alone, and heard your troubles, and solved them. His solution was this, the Process of Villages, so I told him, said the interlocutor. So, I said, not three days ago. I told him, we will allow you a complete reinvention. You now have this choice, a choice that men have never had—not in a hundred thousand years of life—to start over completely. That is what we are here for, and that is how we will help you. And, continued the interlocutor, looking at me, we offer the same help to you. Even now, that man who sat where you are sitting, who sat there sobbing uncontrollably, he was wretched, just wretched, sobbing in that chair—even now, he is peaceful and partway on a new journey. He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. There are, though, said the interlocutor, many formalities to be addressed. That is why I am here. We are to speak, you and I, and I am to learn about you, to classify you, to see to you and find out why it is that you are here. So said this man who was the mirror image, the spitting image of my grandfather, a man I had hated. I, too, was wretched, I thought. I, wretched, was there, sitting in this office, and I was to tell my wretched story. Very well. He was speaking animatedly. This was a part of his repertoire that was well rehearsed. He said, do you know how it will be in the place you have just left? The place I have left? The place you have left—the house you have left, the people you have left, the body of their communications and thought, their livelihoods, their esteems, their hopes—do you know how it will be settled, your coming here? It is this way: Everyone who has known you well will separately receive a small envelope in the post. The envelope will be opened, and when it is opened, there will be within it a yellow slip. Whoever has opened it will find a yellow slip. He or she will draw out the yellow slip and on it there is a name written. Clement Mayer. Your name. They will read this name to themselves. Some will say it out loud. When they open this envelope what will happen is that they will know that you are no longer in their lives, that this person is gone forever and cannot be found or reclaimed anywhere in the world. This is a comfort for you. You may know that all books will close, that all unfinished ends will finish, neatly. There is no looking back because there is no back. The tying off is complete, so said the interlocutor. I asked him if there was a time when a person had to continue forward. I asked if at some point in the process, one could not go back to the old life. Do you want to go back to the old life? I do not want to, I said, I am here for one reason, but I was thinking, for another individual, perhaps, they are here and learn this information, and then they stand up and leave the office, go back to the street and find their way across the city to the place where they live and the people they know. You can leave, right up until the last, said the interlocutor. You could leave now. I have no intention of leaving, I said. There is, though, he said, a matter of proof. It is lamentable, but we have found it necessary to require a proof of sorts. We like to hear your account of yourself. We do this so that we can be sure that you are in the right place—that you are, in fact, reaching for the hand that we extend. He said this quickly, twice, once to me, and then once to himself almost under his breath. Reaching for the hand that we extend. A woman was here, he said, the first person I dealt with in this city, she had a large family and was a great success in government. I believe you would know her face if I were to show it to you. I looked out of my office, I opened the door just as I opened it to admit you, and there she was. I brought her in, sat her down, and at first she could give no account of herself consonant with a need for our help. Every facet of her life was flawless. She was a marvel, she really was, a sort of titan of life’s powers. But, we sat here for a very long time. It became dark outside, and I felt—I will wait. I don’t need to go home. I have nothing especially to return to tonight. I can do this work some hours more and there will be no harm. And as we sat, she began to talk about other things, not just things from her life, but things from other lives, other things that were a part of her so-called mental life. And as we traveled deeper into this thing—she said it was a sort of mental life, I began to feel a certainty. This was a woman that wanted to be parted from everything that she knew. She was not in grief. She had no tears to cry, nothing to lament. But she was finished. The duration of her interest in her life was shorter than the duration of her life. She was in an existential predicament. I said that to her and she did not agree. She thought such a formulation was revolting. We did agree, however, so said the interlocutor, that the treatment was, for her, quite necessary. She filled out the appropriate contracts, and although it was then around eleven p.m., I made the necessary arrangements and she continued on. She did not need to go home again. She simply continued on, once I had made the arrangements. Or, continued the interlocutor, there was a boy, only sixteen years old, who had, as he put it, started out wrong. Everything about his beginning was the incorrect beginning. I met him not in this office but in the previous office. He was quite a fresh-faced darling, very sweet and straightforward, answering every question with his utmost effort. But all his youth was undercut by a dense black grief. He had been deeply misunderstood, right from the get-go. There was nothing for him. At first, I was sure I would dismiss him, send him back. I am sending people back all the time, all the time. But, when he laid out the situation, not as a child would, but as though he were a long veteran of the world, well, I had to capitulate. I gave him what he wanted, and I am sure that he is in good stead. The interlocuto
r was talking, but he was waiting. He was talking, but waiting for me to speak. His talking was a form of permission for me: this is a place for talking, his talking said. The idea that I would speak about my situation was unbearable to me. I said that, I said to him, the idea that I would speak about my situation is unbearable to me. When I learned about the Process of Villages, and that this department was the door to it, the entryway, so to speak, I felt, not hope, for I have none, but a wish that I could cross that threshold speechless, saying nothing. If it were that way, said the interlocutor. I know that I must speak about it, I said. I know that. Then the interlocutor moved his chair a little to the left, as if to prepare himself for something that was coming, and the thing that he was preparing himself for was that I was starting to speak, and what I said was this. Imagine that you are a young woman. Imagine your name is Rana, Rana Nousen. Imagine that you live in a house of great wealth, that you have a fine education, friends, a delightful family. But, that one day, you go to a doctor because you have been having headaches, some pressure in your head, and at the doctor’s office you discover you will die. It is certain. You will soon be dead. It could be drawn out, or it could be swift: that much was uncertain. But that you will die is completely incontrovertible. The doctor doesn’t even qualify a word. The verdict is complete. And you are standing there, and everything, all your fine things turn to ash. Just the same, they shine twice as brightly—every good thing is possessed by the utmost fineness of its nature, for it is suddenly finite—that which was infinite, in a long life, suddenly finite. You leave the office, you go down a street, down one street, down another. And on that day, on that very worst day, you meet a young man. For whatever reason, you think that he is quite wonderful. He, though he may have qualities that do not raise him up above others of his kind, seems to you to be very remarkable, so I told the interlocutor. You, Rana, stand in the street and speak to him. You are exchanging pleasantries that become rapidly tinged with a meticulous seriousness. In the course of a small conversation, the two of you find that you want to keep seeing each other. And so, you see to it that he has your address, and you go off. You go off home, and at home you are surrounded by your family. You tell your family the news: you are to die. Your best friends are summoned to the house. They are told: you are to die. Everyone is gathered there, and it is an atmosphere of loss and sadness. Then, you address the group and what you say is this: you say, there are three months left to me. I want to have them. If they are mine, and they are, then I don’t want to speak about this illness again. Everyone here must swear to never speak of it until I am gone. I am going to leave the room and wash my face and hands. When I come back in, in five minutes’ time, you will all be having a nice gathering that has nothing to do with me. We’ll have food brought in and we will have an evening such as we might have had before the news of today. And please, you add, do not be constantly at my service. That isn’t the life I have led, nor is it the life I want to lead. Then you leave the room, and when you return, your family and friends, so sophisticated and strong are they, that they hold to your wishes. A perfectly acceptable evening goes forward, and at some point in the night, the guests all go home, so I told the interlocutor. Now, the next day, there is a knock at the door of your house. It is the young man. His name is Clement. He wants to see you, and you find that you want to see him. Although he is rather poor and not at all remarkable, you find it in your heart to go on an outing with him. This outing brings you closer together. Soon, a week has passed and you have seen him every day. Your family and friends are astonished. You seem to have changed—and grown even more brilliant. You appear to glow—so happy you have become. When you sit about on bridges, kissing this young man, or when you lurk late into the night at motion picture stalls, or drinking counters, you feel that finally it is here—a life you have always wanted. Somehow, though you must have known other wonderful men, other boys, before this, Clement is to you a thing for which to be grateful. Although he does not, cannot understand this, he does not need to. To all his protestations that he is beneath you, you laugh and laugh. You are always laughing at him and calling him to account for his faults and then laughing more, for to you they are nothing. As the situation continues, you see that some you know, your mother, your father, are growing concerned. You worry that they will tell him, that they will spoil everything. So, you tell them, so you tell your friends, say nothing to Clement of what you know. This I told the interlocutor, sitting in his office, my head in my hands. The room became quiet, was suddenly quiet, had been quiet for a long, long time.
