Sacrifice of Fools

by Ian McDonald

  The traffic barriers are long gone but the security boxes remain, last legacy of the slow war. They look like a concrete cruet. They incongruously frame the New Concert Hall, jewel in the crown of the Laganside Project — if London can do it with Docklands, Belfast has to do it with Dame Milly Putridia Lagan. The thing looks like a nuclear power station, Gillespie thinks. The signs and symbols have changed in the three years since he last went up the steps to the magistrates’ court — two flags clinging damply to their poles, red white and blue, green white and gold; two crests above the porch, lion and unicorn, harp and St Patrick’s cross; two names in two languages. The schizophrenia of Joint Sovereignty.

  He shivers as he passes through the revolving doors. Inside, cigarette smoke and damp male. Same as it ever was. The usual suspects in this year’s sports fashion, laid out along the wooden benches like a team of sent-off footballers. The lawyers sit facing them in plastic chairs. They all have expressions of exasperation on their faces. The floor is cratered with cigarette stub-outs. The walls are graffitied with felt-markered names, fuck-yous and political acronyms.

  His case stands head and shoulders above the rest. The humans leave space around it. Even the solicitor looks uncomfortable, chain-smoking, briefcase on her knees.

  ‘Aileen McKimmis?’

  Her glasses are too big for her thin face. They slip down her nose and she has to stare at him over them. That’s right. A man.

  ‘Are you from the Welcome Centre?’ she says.

  ‘Yes. Andy Gillespie.’

  She doesn’t take the offered hand.

  ‘I thought they would be sending ah…’

  ‘An Outsider? No. They send their apologies. They’ve a longstanding appointment with some people from the Joint Authority about political representation, and this did come up kind of unexpected. So they sent me.’ You’re still looking at me over those glasses, lawyer. You see a squat brick of a man, grey-stubbled, cannon-ball head; three years out-of-date suit splattered dark with rain. But you don’t see the inside. There’re things you’ll never know how to do, in there. ‘My Narha is idiomatic; the Centre would not have sent me if they didn’t have complete confidence in my ability.’

  His hand is taken.

  ‘Could I have a wee word with your client?’ he asks.

  They say it about the Chinese, or the blacks, or the Asians. Catholics probably said it about the Protestant planters, Celts about Anglo-Normans; late Neolithics about Bronze-agers; every established group about new immigrants. And laughed. Ach, they all look the same to me. Can’t tell them apart.

  With this final wave of newcomers, it’s true. They do all look the same. We see their height, and their thinness, and the skin the colour of new terracotta, and the three fingers on the hands and the oval slits in the eyes and the flat wide nose and the tight buds of ears low and far back on the skull and the strips of dark crimson fur over the top of the scalp tapering into a line down the spine; we see the odd jointings and body postures that make their ease seem discomfort to us; and we think, well, they’re not that different, really. Then we look for the sex identifiers, the absolute basis of how we deal with each other: the body shape, the build, the bulges, the breasts or the balls, and they’re not there. Is it male, female, man, woman? We look at another one, maybe there’ll be some difference, then we can tell. It’s important. We have to get these things before we know how to deal with them. They look exactly the same.

  Jesus, this is weird. Do they have men and women? How do they tell?

  They see with more than eyes, that’s how.

  The client stands up to greet Andy Gillespie. It’s dressed in a men’s business suit, way too short in the legs and sleeves, worn over a high-neck green body; a Long Tall Sally label sticks up at the back of the neck. Gillespie takes a long, deep sniff. A female. He shrugs his eyebrows. The client returns the gesture, a flicker of the thin line of dark fur on either side of the central strip. Gillespie offers a hand, palm up. The client bends down and licks it.

  The whole room has gone quiet.

  She offers Gillespie her hand. He touches the tip of his tongue to the soft centre of her palm. The Outsider tastes of herbs, honey, vagina, rust, hay, incense and pot. Her unique chemical identity. Her name, in perfume.

  Aileen McKimmis’s eyes are wide behind her too-big glasses.

  I bet you smiled, Gillespie thinks, like they taught you in client relations. Put the client at her ease. Except you did the exact opposite. Bared teeth are a threat. You smile to these people by blinking slowly. Like this.

  — I’m Andy Gillespie, he says in Narha. The Welcome Centre sent me. —

  — I was expecting a Harridi, the client says. Her voice is a low contralto, her accent unplaceable; strange yet familiar. The aliens in the movies never have accents, except the ones with boomy Big Brother voices. Echoey. Jehovah speaks. This Outsider talks like music.

  — Like I was saying to —

  — I heard what you said to my advocate.

  — I’m here in the capacity of an expert witness. Advocate McKimmis has explained to you that we’re here… Gillespie breaks off. — Could we continue this in English? Narha doesn’t have the words for the legal processes. Your law is too different.

  ‘Certainly, Mr Gillespie.’

  ‘I know that by your law you did nothing wrong, but this is a very serious charge and the prosecution — that’s the lawyer who represents the state whose laws you’ve broken — will try to have you sent to prison until the full trial because they think you might attempt to leave the country.’

  ‘Why should I do that? Do you people not respect your own law?’

  ‘In a word, no.’

  The Outsider screws up her nose: incomprehension.

  ‘I would have preferred one of our own knight-advocates, a genro,’ she says.

  ‘Our courts don’t recognize them. You’ve got me, you’ve got Mizz McKimmis; we’ll keep you out of jail.’

  You do not want to be there. I’ve seen what it’s like for your people. And I don’t ever want to see what happened there happen again. You won’t go to jail, none of you will go to jail, while I have strength in me.

  The door to court one opens.

  ‘Case twelve,’ calls a short usher in a black gown. ‘Case twelve.’

  Aileen McKimmis stands up, tucks her briefcase under her arm and dusts cigarette ash off her skirt.

  ‘Show time.’

  She leaves another butt-end impact crater behind her in the waiting room floor.

  Above the magistrates’ bench the shiny new harp and cross shoulder in on the chipped lion and unicorn, like a scam merchant with a deal to offer. There’s a new name for the prosecution. It’s not the Crown versus any more. It’s the Joint Justices. Gillespie can’t believe that the name made it all the way to statute without anyone getting the joke. Double the civil servants, half the irony.

  Defence and Joint Justices confer. Back on their home bench, the prosecution consults palmtops. The defendant comes up into the dock. The court goes very quiet. All rise. The magistrates are in. All persons having business, all that. Then again, in Irish. Case number 451279, Joint Justices versus Fff. Fff… Fidiki… The magistrates look at the usher. The usher looks at the prosecution. The prosecution looks at the defendant.

  ‘Fidikihana Kusarenjajonk,’ she says, very slowly. She takes the usher through it twice.

  Andy Gillespie’s loving it.

  You are Fidikihana Kusarenjajonk, of Occasionally Plentiful Hunting Hold, Tullynagarry Road, Carryduff?

  ‘I am.’

  The charge is the attempted murder of Christopher and John Beattie, of Wordsworth Gardens, Carryduff, aged fourteen and sixteen, and of Andrew Coey, of Shelley Rise, Carryduff, age fifteen, on the evening of March the first, 2004. How do you plead?

  The Outsider flicks her eyes to her defence brief. Aileen McKimmis nods. No, you don’t do that. And Gillespie catches Fidikihana’s eye, flicks his head back. Yes.

  ‘I a
m not guilty.’

  She doesn’t even understand what that means.

  The charge of the prosecution: that the accused did confront the above-mentioned Christopher and John Beattie and Andrew Coey while they were playing football in Wordsworth Gardens, pour an inflammable liquid — petrol — over them and set them alight with intent of murder.

  And what is the condition of the brothers Beattie and Andrew Coey?

  Second and third degree burns to thirty per cent of the body surface. The victims are undergoing treatment at the specialist burns unit at the Royal Victoria Hospital. They are very seriously ill. In view of the extremely violent nature of the assault, on young children, the prosecution recommends custody.

  The bench is inclined to agree. This is a most heinous allegation. Ms McKimmis; have you anything to say in defence of your client?

  ‘I’d like to call Mr Andrew Gillespie. Mr Gillespie is employed by the Shian Welcome Centre in University Street, and is qualified to speak on matters of Shian psychology and physiology pertinent to our defence.’ The look over the glasses says, you had better be.

  He does the thing with the book and the hand and the wee note card in the box in case you can’t remember the oath.

  ‘Mr Gillespie, could you tell us about the work of the Shian Welcome Centre?’

  ‘Certainly. It’s mostly a contact service for gensoons; those are young, single Outsiders, who’ve come into the country looking for Holds — the big Shian extended families — to join. The way their society operates, adolescents leave their birth families and travel widely until they are accepted into another. The Centre has lists of Holds in Ireland, and also assesses the suitability of newcomers for particular Holds.’

  ‘A sort of dating agency?’ the magistrate on the left asks.

  ‘In a sense. And a bit like a employment agency as well, in that it sets individuals up with groups. The Centre also provides a liaison service with organizations employing Shian; industry, shops, restaurants, things like that. There’s a lot of room for misunderstandings between the two species.’

  The prosecution harumph.

  ‘My job is mostly in the field of human-Shian relations and I do quite a bit of translation work as well. I speak idiomatic Narha; that’s the lingua franca of the Shian Nations. The Centre also serves as a base for the Shian political organization, such as it is. You’ve probably been hearing about it on the news lately. I don’t have much to do with that.’

  ‘So you’re something of a Shian expert, Mr Gillespie?’

  ‘Well, no one can really claim to be an expert on these people. But I think I know them as well as any human can.’

  ‘Could you explain, then, Ms Kusarenjajonk’s actions?’

  ‘The primary motivation in Shian society is the preservation of the children. Family lines, bloodlines, are very, very important to them. The Shian law allows any action in defence of a child; including killing. The case notes state that the children of Occasionally Plentiful Hunting Hold had been taunted and bullied by youths from the estate that backs on to their farm. There are at least five complaints from the Hold to the police, none of which were followed up. The police don’t want to get involved in Outsider affairs.’

  ‘Police competence is not in question here, Mr Gillespie,’ says the magistrate on the right.

  ‘The Welcome Centre had been informed that there was friction between the two communities, and we were attempting some kind of mediation. The boys; John and Chris Beattie and Andrew Coey, had harassed and beaten up Fidikihana Kusarenjajonk’s young son Mushedsen on several occasions, and just before the incident, had attacked him on this street, stolen his bicycle and threatened him that if he told anyone they’d come back and kill him. Fidikihana Kusarenjajonk took what she considered appropriate action to end the threat to her child. It may seem extreme to us, but by Shian law, by the customs of her species, she did nothing wrong. By her standards, she showed incredible restraint. In fact, not to have done what she did would have been wrong; it would have been seen as criminal negligence of her child by Shian law.’

  The magistrate in the middle twiddles with his pencil.

  ‘Yes, Mr Gillespie, but it is human law, specifically the law of the Joint Authority, that has jurisdiction in this court.’

  ‘In your opinion, is Ms Kusarenjajonk a danger to the community?’ Aileen McKimmis asks.

  ‘No more than any Shian is.’

  ‘If she is released on bail, is she likely to seek further vengeance on these boys?’

  ‘No. She’s removed the threat. They won’t be going near her child again. Anything else would be a violation of their individual rights, which is a separate issue in Shian law.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Gillespie.’

  It’s the prosecution’s turn now.

  ‘Mr Gillespie, are you a qualified xenologist? Degrees? Diplomas? Certification with our fine new Department of Xenology in Queen’s University?’

  ‘Well, not qualified.’

  ‘So you don’t have any accreditation for your expertise on Outsider affairs?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see. You speak Narha idiomatically. Where did you learn the language?’

  You fucking fuck of a smug bastard.

  ‘Mr Gillespie?’

  ‘The Maze Prison.’

  ‘Where you were serving a term for conspiracy to murder. I’m glad to see you spent your time constructively.’

  Aileen’s on her feet.

  ‘I must object to the relevance of this line of questioning. This is not a trial.’

  ‘But Mr Gillespie’s qualification as an expert witness is surely highly relevant here.’

  Middle magistrate does the pencil thing again.

  ‘It really is a bit cheeky bringing up Mr Gillespie’s prison record, Mr Magrory,’ he says. His colleagues nod. ‘Where Mr Gillespie learned his— Narha? Is that is? — is hardly relevant.’

  ‘No further questions. Thank you, Mr Gillespie.’ Smug fucking fuck bastard Magrory sums up. Then Aileen’s on her feet.

  ‘What we have here is a clash of cultures. I don’t deny that a very serious act took place, that severe injuries were inflicted on these three boys. What is in question is my client’s state of mind, which the bench must recognize is very, very different from our mind-set. In my client’s view, she has committed no crime. Had she killed those boys, she would still have committed no crime. She has no sense of having done wrong; in fact, she has done right. Like very young children are assumed to have no conception of right and wrong and can’t be held morally accountable for their actions, Shian morality, and their concepts of right and wrong, are equally alien to us, and must be taken into account. These are the early days of contact between our species; there must be a certain amount of leeway in dealings between us, a period of mutual adjustment. I sympathize with the sufferings of the victims, and the anguish of their families, but I do not think the law, justice, or relations between humans and Outsiders would be served by custody.’

  The magistrates look at each other. They mutter. They nod. Then the middle magistrate says, ‘This is a nasty, vicious attack on three vulnerable members of society. The victims will in all likelihood bear the scars of this attack for the rest of their lives. Such an offence, if proven, would normally warrant custody. However, there are unique features to this case that demand special consideration. We find ourselves in a delicate state of rapprochement between two markedly different cultures, and while the Outsiders must recognize that their law has no remit in our society, deeply ingrained cultural and social beliefs can only be changed over time. Ms Kusarenjajonk, I believe you are convinced that you have done nothing wrong and that you acted in the best interests of your child, but you must reflect that in defending him you have caused suffering to the parents of other children. I am also inclined to believe Mr Gillespie’s testimony that you are unlikely to pose a threat in future, and I am persuaded by counsel’s argument that community relations would not be improved by sending you
to prison. Therefore I am remanding you on bail of three thousand pounds to appear for trial on the fifteenth of May in the Crown Court.’

  Yes! Result!

  ‘Central Court of Justice, your Honour,’ smug bastard Magrory interjects.

  ‘Yes. Exactly. The Central Court of Justice. It takes me a while to get used to these new names. Who is tendering bail?’

  ‘The Welcome Centre’s putting it up,’ Gillespie whispers to McKimmis. He slips the plastic out of his wallet.

  ‘The Shian Welcome Centre, your Honour,’ Aileen says.

  Back in the waiting room Aileen McKimmis thanks Gillespie.

  ‘Sorry about the prosecution. That was underhand.’

  ‘It’s not where you’ve been, it’s where you’re going to. That’s what I tell myself. Most of the time I believe it.’

  — Thank you, Gillespie, though I am not quite sure what it is you prevented me experiencing, Fidikihana says in Narha. My Hold will recompense the Welcome Centre as soon as possible.

  Gillespie tilts his head from left to right, an Outsider gesture of dismissal. — Don’t worry about it. The Harridis have more money than they know what to do with. But I wouldn’t count on that defence working in the real trial.

  The usher’s out again, moving through the hard lads and their briefs, frantic in his little black gown. ‘Case sixteen,’ he’s crying. ‘Case sixteen.’

  It’s only a stud-wall box he shares with the photocopier and sixteen boxes of old gold A4 (they like old gold, they do everything on old gold), but it’s more home than his flat over on Eglantine Avenue. He still despises suits and shirts who’ll tell you their real home is the office; they say it because it’s where their families aren’t. For him this office is home because it’s where his family is.

  Seyamang and Vrenanka are chasing each other around the desk legs on their tricycles. When they get bored with that they’ll come and stick their faces in the photocopier or climb up the stacked old gold. Seyoura is on the phone — hers is the next stud-wall box to Gillespie’s — trying to get some kid who’s had his money lifted in the bus station a place for the night in their Transients’ House on Palestine Street. Senkajou is in deep communion with the computer — Gillespie’ll never understand how that direct chemical interface works, looks too much like snorting cocaine to him — and Muskravhat is making an appointment to see someone from one of the big Holds in London’s Docklands.